


it's not the waking, it's the rising

by Atanvarnie



Series: Flash sideways [2]
Category: One Piece, The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Canon-Typical Violence, Crew as Family, Drug Addiction, Drug Withdrawal, Fix It, Gen, Guess who is, Happy AU, Marineford isn’t going to happen, Multi, Trans Characters, badass!buggy, but they are going to destroy it anyway, cannon fix it, no beta we die like men, so guess who's not going to die
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2020-07-11 10:40:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19926742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atanvarnie/pseuds/Atanvarnie
Summary: Klaus was never supposed to be at that party, the Spades were never supposed to find someone asleep at the shore. Life turned out better for it though.





	1. a cry at the final breath

**Author's Note:**

> This is all  stereden's fault

“Christ on a cracker” Klaus stared at the grey sky, hands and arms stiff. He could tell that there was something wrong but he couldn’t quite realise what, there was something he needed to remember. There was… music before (that wasn’t important), but why couldn’t he hear anything now. He could hear his own voice, but Klaus realised he had thought it but he couldn’t recognise if he _said_ anything? The music was important, no not the music something he could hear over the music. No he didn’t want to remember _maybe daddy dearest was the worst but at least he knows how to repress memories._ (A lie he could push them back but they were never gone the screaming, begging, the freezing cold, and the smell of rot just waiting until he couldn’t push it back anymore.)

“What are you doing here?” An annoyed voice broke through his thoughts tilting his head up lord shouldn’t that hurt _we’re ignoring that come on brain_ to see a young girl on a bike staring down at him, everything even the flowers were grey, a fitting colour for his mood but where have all the colours gone? T _hat wasn’t important he was missing something, something obvious_ “you don’t belong here.”

  
“That’s a first, wait no its not but give me a few minutes and I’m sure I’ll fit in somewhere.” Klaus’ voice was tired nothing hurt but he _knew_ it should but mostly he was tired, tired of not belonging of not having a place to belong. This is why he wanted to be numb all the time no one took him seriously, no one cared and if he was high it didn’t matter.

“I said you don’t belong here now get out.” She stared down at him this was wrong he wasn’t meant to be here _not ever but especially not now_. He wasn’t meant to exist here he was throwing everything off she could feel that the _why did her thoughts have to be limited by the form she possessed the languages humans use are only useful for telling each other the best way to fuck off not that Klaus was listening to her_ , doorway was open on this side and soon some forsaken idiot is going to wander off. And then she’ll have more work to do corralling the idiots back to where they belong. She wasn’t going to ever going to let someone else input into her design seriously they were spending far to much time with the humans to pick up betting and then he had to use this form as a way of getting her to agree.

“Fine it’s not like I wanted to be here anyway” pouting and moving his arms up and down letting his fists hit his legs gently “where am I? And how do I find the exit.” Realising that his legs are working again, he could feel his fists, Klaus jumped up “take that Ben you said… Where’s Ben?” His voice changed higher and panicked _where’s Ben he had to be here_. Ben was always there had been even before he died, it was always them Klaus and Ben, Four and Six. No one else in their family realised how having a _power_ could be bad.

Luther was too tied up being daddy’s favourite and trying to lead. Diego was too busy trying to be the favourite to realise dad didn’t care. Alison perfect Alison who could bend the world to be what she wants it to be praised over and over again not realising everything was fake. Five brilliant angry Five who ran away too young to even get a name, so sure that he knew everything to hesitate. And Vanya it was always _and Vanya_ as if she wasn’t apart of their family raised in the hell house with them, who always wanted to be special as if Klaus wouldn’t do _anything_ to be her- to be free. Ben would try to make her feel more included but it was so hard to see her want powers and not care for what it did to both Klaus and Ben. So it was Klaus and Ben against the world Four and Six together and this girl was not going to keep Ben away from him.

Klaus did not know that when he arrived here he had been the soberest he’d been since he’d found drugs, not that he was sober but soberer, just sober enough that in his panic he managed to find the part of him that connected to Ben, the part that allowed Ben to be visible to him unless he was so drugged up that he overdosed. Frantically pulling on that thread needing Ben to be near him he was so scared, the noise that covered the music ~~keep breathing~~ and the silence ~~keep breathing~~ and the screaming ~~keep breathing~~ and the pain ~~keep breathing~~ and the emptiness ~~_why didn’t he need to breathe._~~

It didn’t matter that Ben couldn’t touch him that he didn’t realise how bad the ghosts were until he was dead. Didn’t realise just what their father put Klaus through. He stayed. ~~The only one to stay~~ , ~~the only one to care~~ , it had always been Four and Six and _this girl this place wasn’t going to take Ben away from him._

She was staring this wasn’t allowed she did not create everything just for this human to mess this up. _Humans didn’t care about her they made her out to be benevolent and kind, as if any benevolent creature would create humans._ How dare this human interfere with her personal realm, she had given up _lost interest_ trying to understand or care for humans, letting them ruin their world and themselves. She didn’t care about this human anymore then the others but he was a doorway and she wanted him out. She should have waited until he moved off the path before she returned him but he was ruining her home and quite frankly she didn’t want to look at his face any longer then she had to.

 _If_ he had come at a later time, if he hadn’t of been almost sober, if he hadn’t tried to work out how to summon Ben then him being on the path wouldn’t have changed anything. He would go back and the world would continue turning, the world wouldn’t find a junkie left dead after a beach shooting, time would move on and this would have been nothing more than a bad trip.

But he _had_ come now, he _was_ almost sober, and Ben was being pulled towards his brother and the sound of the ocean was roaring in Klaus’s ears, and when she sent Klaus back he didn’t go back to the beach where he was supposed to go. Instead he woke up to the lapping of the waves a hand clutching his and a grinning voice.

“See I’m not the only one.”

“Yes that’s great Captain you are not the only person in the world who can fall asleep in the weirdest possible places so that the only logical conclusion is that you _died_ ”


	2. A place we could escape sometime

“Yes that’s great Captain you are not the only person in the world who can fall asleep in the weirdest possible places so that the only logical conclusion is that you  _ died.” _ Klaus knew he should open his eyes but that pain that didn’t exist in the grey world had come back with a vengeance.

“I like them.”  _ Okay so there are two voice so two people at least maybe one of them will be kind enough to let me sleep _ .

“Of course you do”  _ If you like me so much let me sleep _ but then a soft slightly wet thing was pressed against his neck, something was tickling his cheek as well. Reluctantly he opened his eyes colour had returned to the world turning his head he could see that what had been pressing against him was a tiny rusty striped cat.

“Look Dolce approves of them” That voice seemed to be coming from the person who was holding his hand, Klaus just needed to turn his head to see them. 

“Dolce might think their already dead”  _ Dolce? The kitten. Or maybe the other person?  _

“You know she would of attacked them already” Klaus was guessing that they were talking about the kitten who was putting her black paws on his cheek.

“You know she likes her victims alive” That was not reassuring person Klaus thought, surviving his whole childhood just to be killed by a tiny kitten. 

“Stop being mean” A joke and a poor one maybe he’d be able to get along with these people then.

“It’s the truth she wants them to scream.” And that was enough for Klaus he had to know who these people were. Lifting his head he turned to face the one holding his hand only to see a neon orange cowboy hat, he was only slightly excited to have colour vision back because that was the most gaudy hat he had seen and he only wanted to wear it  _ once _ . 

Cowboy hat guy beamed Klaus couldn’t help but smile in return he felt something approaching safe- or at least what he thought safe felt like. “Hi I’m Ace and the grump behind you is Deuce and this” Ace moved to pick up the tiniest cat from the floor cuddling her close with one hand “is Dolce”

“Aka” Deuce interrupted “evil incarnate do not attempt to pick her up  _ EVER  _ or even attempt to touch her unless you feel like losing a hand. Ace here is the only exception” Deuce tacked on before Klaus could ask.

“And the hand holding?” Klaus asked because this world was definitely not the same world as the one he was from if Ace who had wisps of fire coming off his cheeks highlighting his freckles, was any indication, also the lack of buildings and polluted beaches was an indication. And dealing with that was not something he wanted to deal with right now.

“Umm that was you. I was checking your pulse but then you grabbed my hand so I stayed here until you woke up.” It was Klaus’ turn to blush he had to be so  _ needy  _ and  _ touch starved _ that he would cling to anyone, and it always happened when he was sleeping when he couldn’t control his  pathetic needy reactions. 

“Anyway since Dolce likes you do you want to join us?” Deuce asked seeing as his captain and the formally asleep man were just staring at each other and looked like they had no intention of moving. 

“No fair Deuce” Ace pouted “I was gonna ask him, so do you wanna join the Spades?” This wasn’t the usual introduction, which involved more fire, screaming, and far too much laughing, but Ace was gonna work with it, Dolce only liked the best people so the new person was gonna fit in great.

“The Spades?” Klaus asked wondering how he had gone from a beach party to a recruitment pitch which involved a murder kitten. 

“Shock. Gasp. Horror. You haven’t heard of us? Hey you think this will be a good place to test Saith’s and Ennea’s ability to blend into a marine base?” Ace was going to ask the new one his name but the shock of not being heard of distracted him, it’s not like Ace was particularly vain, about himself but he was proud of his crew and the reputation they had managed to gather in the 3 weeks since he started out, so it _wasn’t_ impossible for the islander’s to not know about them. The marine base on the other hand, well Ennea had been blackmailing the marines for years now she should be able to make sure Saith _didn’t_ blow their cover in minutes. “But yes we are the Spade pirates here to make the marines life as difficult and problematic as possible as we search for freedom.” He said with a huge grin on his face, not noticing klaus smiling in return. 

“And in your case food.” Deuce had to interject not wanting them to be mistaken for revolutionaries, Deuce had asked Ace once if the goal was to join up with them but hearing the leader’s name Ace had suddenly grown enraged, and not the normal fiery death rage but, a quiet rage of old anger. Decue wasn’t sure what Dragon had done, but he wasn’t the only wanted man to cause Ace to rage, the pirate king would do it as well. But that didn’t matter to Deuce they would do the same work as revolutionaries but as long as Dragon caused Ace anger Deuce was going to make sure that no one mistook them for revolutionaries. 

“It’s not my fault that you guys have small appetites” Ace was appalled at many things (okay two) about his crew most importantly how small their portions were, he was trying to increase their meal sizes, he was almost always hungry but this was  _ his  _ crew  _ his  _ and no way would he let them go hungry. Even if Ennea and Talata had both said the crew were eating enough. The second was that they all seemed to have an odd idea about how big animals were meant to be, all the animals they had come across were  _ small  _ not big, at least Talata agreed with him on this. (Dolce being the obvious exception everyone agreed that she was  _ tiny. _ )

“It’s your fault you have a gigantic appetite.” Deuce was somehow going to get his captain to acknowledge that most people despite what the idiom said could not actually eat an entire bear and  _ still  _ be hungry.

“The marines are bad then?” Yes Klaus thought excellent job at gaining their attention, as both Deuce and Ace turned back to face him.

“Oh sweetie” Deuce said. 

“Deuce that’s not helpful” Ace also sent Deuce a look that he had sent many times before which could be read as I know you’re a sarcastic bastard but also lets not start  _ just  _ now.

“Do you want me to tell him or Saith?” Deuce’s answering look could be read as follows I can tell this future crew mate, yes Ace I know Dolce picked him, but also he hasn't actually said yes yet, or we can let this poor unaware naive soul interact with Saith unprepared. 

“I mean Saith can do it will more detail” Ace sheepishly replied the fire which had died off a while ago was replaced with a crimson flush. Klaus was well aware that Ace was cute but with the blushing really did highlight his freckles and it was  _ adorable _ .

“She’s also super in your face and angry” Deuce replied to Ace but really it was aimed towards the body on the ground, this way if he  _ did  _ want to ask Saith a, he had been warned and more importantly b, this meant Deuce was allowed to record his reactions. And since he was a new person Deuce’s blackmail store on him was frightly low. 

“Okay marines bad I got it.”

“You do know that letting them speak would have been better? You know how else are you going to learn where we ended up?” Ben asked. Ben who up until this point had been floating outside of Klaus’ view trying to work out how exactly they had ended up here. And how Klaus was alive, not that he was complaining empty beach with no gunman and an alive younger brother was more than he hoped for after the gun shots. But Klaus was  _ dead _ and the horror wanted to come out and rage with him, and then there was white and the feeling of being dragged then peace and the sound of the sea.

“General overview because you seem to have lived an isolated life under the sea” Duece’s voice disrupted Ben’s thoughts, it seemed Ben was going to get some of the information he was looking for after all. 

“That’s mean Jack lived under the sea all his life and he knew the marines are bad” Ace interrupted.

“ _ Anyway _ marines work for the world government and the world government is the worst because they are controlled or are part of world nobles, I’ll be honest I don’t really know or care which way round it is I’m just against them, the nobles are pricks who actively participate in slavery, so the world gov is like slavery is bad but we’re not going to stop it.” 

“So basically the world gov is the worst and you are the only ones against them, a rag bag team to save the world” Klaus wondered how he got involved in this a second time well at least this time it wasnt a group of murder babies. Unbeknownst to him the spade pirate’s were unable to be a superhero group because that would involve some form of organisation, which they did not have. 

“God no, one crew against the world you’d have to be mad to do that, though under Ace we might end up doing that. We are just trying to be free and help others to be free. Part of which means checking out marine bases to see which marines are trying to help.” Deuce was aware that quite a lot of marines the lower ranked ones anyway were not aware of the marines stance towards slavery, and the fact that the the newbie had not told them where he had come from meant that instead of being ignorant about everything he could be hiding that he was a marine. 

“Which is almost always no-one but we did recruit Joker that way” 

“... and” Deuce was grateful to his captain for many things and the fact he was confirming they had ex-marine crew members will be useful in getting the newbie to join them. But also he could be really dumb about some things,  _ you don’t just say that what if the newbie realises that we think he could be a marine  _ Deuce tried to communicate this with his eyes. 

“And what?” Ace asked tilting his head slightly in confusion his eyes wide.

“Maybe you tell him the  _ other _ reason why you like to fuck with the marines.” Realising Ace was not getting the message he let his eyes drift down to Dolce who was still resting in Ace’s hand and shared a look. 

“What other reasons?”

“Captain I love you and the chaos you bring and I will follow you anywhere but you can’t tell me you  _ don’t know  _ that you’re attacking marine bases because that’s what your grandfather wanted you to be and you had to rebel” 

“Well duh that’s obvious” Ace said his tone indicating he’d just realised something.

“That just occurred to you now didn’t it?”

“Not that I want to interrupt this little shin-dig but would either of you know where to find any drugs?” Klaus could feel the nausea increase, he had gone to the beach party to score anything however the gunman interrupted his plans, and now his withdrawal symptoms were overshadowing his need to figure out where that girl had taken him. 

“Really?” Klaus shot a glare at Ben, yeah he was worried  the only sibling who bothered to be but come on he needs them,  to keep  _ them  _ away , to keep the sweats, the fever, the itching at bay, but he could  _ see _ the outlines’ of two people standing beside orange hat guy. 

“Drugs?”

“Do you mean medicine?”

“ _ Fabulous _ , alcohol then please tell me you have that at least”  _ FUCK there has to be something he couldn’t deal with them on his own. _

“If you like rum then yes we do.” Part of Ace, a large part, was worried about what this guy needed but until he wanted to talk about it none of the spades would mention it, just like they didn’t ask why Saith needed a place to sleep with no walls, why Quinque freezes at the mention of mimes, why Ocht flinches at an unexpected touch, why there’s so many things not all of them have been talked about. But on nights where they have curled up together feeling safer then most of them could ever remember feeling the pain seep out. 

“Fantastic if you could lead me to the rum” There was something at least he said, pushing himself up with one hand. 

“Are you gonna join us?” Seeing the newbie move Deuce wanted to know if he was going to be their newbie or if Ace was gonna ask them to stay until he wanted to join them.

“If you give me rum then yes” The outlines were becoming clearer he could hear them talking to each other hopefully they haven’t realised yet that the drugs were wearing off and he could see them.

“That’s not a good thing you know someone could take advantage of you.” Deuce sighed this was like Ace all over again did- the official- newbie also raise himself in the middle of nowhere? 

“Like that matters.” Deuce and Dolce shared a look before Dolce curled up, still in Ace’s palm. Deuce sighed another one of the crew who needed a buddy.  _ God doesn’t like me and unless you can make the ghosts and the memories go away I’ll stick with the drink  _ Klaus thought.

“Wait does this mean he can see us? I knew the boy’s weren’t reacting to the other guy for a reason.” Klaus still couldn’t see her face but she was speaking and not wailing or screaming this hadn’t happened since Ben.

“Does that really matter? He’s not let go of my babies hand” He could feel the glare of the man towards him the ghosts arms flailing trying to move hat guy away, definitely not going to let them know his name now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do I know what I’m doing no am I super grateful that you guys seem to like this yes.


	3. love with every stranger, the stranger the better

“Come on we gotta go to the others” Ace exclaimed pulling Klaus up with one arm and Klaus just stared ignoring the frantic ghost which was now crying over his baby holding someone’s hand, the last time Luther pulled him up or Diego for that matter, he felt his arms pulling from his sockets yanking him harshly up, that’s what the useless weak link gets not caring that he can hear the screams of the guys they are killing, but Ace didn’t do that pulling him up so that he was able to roll with it, keeping him steady. _It’s not fair that these guys are nice to him at some point they’ll realise that he’s not worth it and change and._ Dolce reached out licking the top of his finger holting Klaus’ train of thought.

“See you’re a spade now, time to go back to the Royal” Ace was leading Klaus round the edge of the beach the water lapping at their feet. Putting Dolce on his shoulders he used his, now free hand to grab Deuce’s hand. 

“The Royal?” Klaus was a little distracted by the man’s sobbing increasing and the fact that the lady was now looking adoringly at Ace and putting her hand out towards Ben. 

“The best ship” Ace was not subtle in defence of his ship it was Talata’s originally when she had set off for the blues but he had designed the figure head along with Joker and Quinque after the previous figure head had been sacrificed itself in taking down several marine ships. 

“Our ship” Deuce added, everyone loved the Royal it was their home and Joker was the one doing most of the repairs as they were the shipwright but everyone brought things back to make their home the comfiest place to live.

“Which is why it’s the best ship” Klaus couldn’t imagine anyone loving a place so much, the academy was always dark and depressing even with the feeling of wealth coming off the furniture. The lady had hold of Ben and was grabbing the wailing man by his ear, they seemed to be walking behind them and although he was reluctant to let Ben out of his sight, Klaus carried on walking knowing he’d catch up. 

“Everyone should be there” Deuce said hoping that for once saying it would make it so, the Spade’s were a lot of things but easily corralled was not one of them. 

“Quinque” Ace pointed out, Ace and Quinque were the two members of the ship most likely to get lost on land, even if Ace insisted that he didn’t get lost the crew would argue that going into the jungle and making it so the others can’t find him makes him lost. Quinque on the other hand-

“Almost everyone should be there except the curious one and whoever has realised he’s gone off and if following him” Deuce sighed out Quinque who had joined the crew because he was curious about the ship and no one realised he had snuck on until after they left the island, and is the reason why they have to check to see that all crew members are aboard.

“It could be Queen.” Ace loved to see the look of horror crossing Deuce’s face and the reflexive squeeze of his hand.

“No please no” Klaus shot Ace a look asking for an explanation.

“Queen likes to make every journey more long and convoluted then it needs to be which is why she’s the best navigator.” Klaus could hear the affection Ace had for the others in his voice.

“She’s certainly the something navigator but definitely not the best” Deuce wished he could navigate because changing direction because you can _smell flowers_ on the wind was not in his opinion a reasonable way to sail. 

“That’s rude she’s great she got us here” Klaus could see part of what he thought was a ship, and he focused on that, not Ben and the lady talking to quietly for him to hear over Ace and Deuce. And it was just such a shock to hear ghosts that were not screaming at him but he needed something these two ghosts might be the exception and he didn’t want to lose this he couldn’t 

“But is this the place we were meant to go?” Deuce’s voice helped cut through the panic just a little bit longer and then numbness.

“But it’s the place we needed to go” Ace argued back and Deuce internally had to agree Queen did bring them to their latest crew member but he wasn’t going to tell her that there was no need to encourage her.

“There she is the Royal” The ship finally came into view it was a bright orange to match Ace’s hat, and the flag on the sails well, Klaus had to stop and stare it was a bright red spade with a flaming hat, but the part that really got Klaus’ attention was the figurehead.

“Is that a t-rex that’s on fire” Klaus really was starting to get why they loved this ship.

“It’s a phoenix t-rex” Ace was so proud of this design letting go of Klaus and Deuce’s hands and grabbing Dolce kissing the top of her head and spinning her round. 

“That’s terrible i love it” The ship was just so bright and tacky and amazing. It wasn’t just the figurehead and the sail but the ship was painted in bright colours and cloth and it just gave off a sense of warmth.

“Hey Cap” a voice called down from the side of the ship a figure with a cloud of purple hair leaned over the side of the ship, their skin a rose brown skin and the scar curving up their cheek reminded him of a lion.

“Who’s on quinque” getting all the crew together was necessary if they want to party, and for Deuce to get blackmail material. _Though_ he thought _if the newbie is anything like the rest of the spades he won’t know the meaning of shame._

“Jack” the person sang the reply a giant grin on their face. 

“I’m gonna go grab them we have a new member, don’t drive them off okay?” And with that Ace turned around and sprinted inland.

“Wait- I’ll go after him” Deuce sighed before trying to catch up to the rapidly disappearing figure. 

“Hi newbie” They threw a ladder down and waited until he had clambered up to the deck “so before Cap comes back here’s everyone Tatala” a smirking lady her eyes lined with dark purple wings making her eyes standout beautifully against her golden skin, wearing pale amber jewellery set against her shiny white Hijab who raised a hand. 

“Ocht” pointing towards a pale white figure dressed in pink and white with a flower crown who was curled up on a pile of cushions. 

“Saith” pointing to the only other white figure on board with a mechanical pink arm and leg, pulling her tri coloured hair (white, pale blue, and pale pink) up, showing off her spiked shoulders and the tattoo’s covering her body.

“Queen” an Asian lady with warm golden vanilla skin with two staffs paused her katas to raise them in greeting. 

“I’m king,” pointing to themself, “Joker’s over there” pointing to someone with deep, dark night shaded skin, the copper wires and parts in their mechanical arm exposed. They had a bald head and the most stunning bright pale green eyes, to make emeralds jealous shaded with white eyeshadow, who gave them a smile in return.

“Assara” A man with golden hair and rich russet skin paused shooting arrows into a target on the mast, black tattoos partially hidden by his clothes and hair.

“Ennea.” A lady in a long pinks skirt which flared out twirled a beaded lantern, the flames highlighting her ochre skin and the purple highlights in her hair.

“The amazing Ennea really you should know better by now” her voice didn’t seem to match her appearance of an elegant lady, her voice was deep, loud, brash, and filled to the brim with assured self confidence, she knew she was great and was going to make sure you knew as well.

“Yes we know you can make king suffer for it later, but are you gonna tell him or?” Assara who originally had returned to his shooting but upon realising there was a chance to mock King had put his arrows away and was now twisting a knife through his fingers.

“Fine so we” King realising that they were going to start the same conversation again sighed, at least the Cap and Deuce weren’t here to listen to it.

“You mean you” Assara smirked refusing to let King get away with shifting the blame. 

“Okay so I” King slowly dragged the words out. 

“Are a damn moron and thought since we are the spade pirates, I say we King was the third to join the crew after Ace and Deuce and since the crew was called the spades and the ship was called the royal, what did you think” Asara interrupted he could feel the Cap stopping and starting to turn around, best to wrap this up quick before they get back and well if this way he could insult King a little well who was gonna stop him. 

“I thought we had to change our names to match cards” King knew from experience that trying to mumble the words just made the rest of the crew ensure they said them louder.

“And then” Queen decided to join in teasing King this time her voice pitched to be flirtatious even though she knew it was going to go over king’s head. 

“I convinced the next crew members that’s what we did.” Convinced wasn’t exactly how they got Queen to change their name but then again, how were they to explain that Queen’s response to King saying their name was king was ‘I’ll be your Queen then’ it always made the rest of the crew groan. 

“Until Deuce ended up saying it was like fate that we were all brought together” this time it was Saith adding her two cents in. She had moved from leaning against a wall to sit down on the floor across from king.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to at this point we just want to see how long it takes for them to figure it out” Assara wanted to make it clear to the newbie that he didn’t have to change his name if he didn’t want to, that when joining the spades you just had to get the evil cat to like you, and since Dolce had seen him and not left him a bloody mess he was already part of the crew. 

“Don’t cards have numbers?” Klaus was pretty sure he was right in this and that the Royal was a poker reference but this new world had someone who had fire coming off him the cards might be different as well. 

“Yeah, Tatala is three, Quinque is five, Saith is seven, Ocht eight, Ennea nine, and Assara is ten, I’m assuming you get Jack, Queen, King and Joker.” Assara pointed to each of them in turn, waving when he got to him and pointing over the side for Quinque and Jack. 

“So you’re missing four and six” Klaus questioned barely getting the words out in between hysterical laughter. He ended slipping down joining Saith on the floor. 

“You okay there” Ennea wandered over poking him with a set of beads that wasn’t attached to the lamp.

“I’m Four” Klaus managed to get out before looking over at Ben catching his eye before the two of them burst out laughing again. The lady Ben was talking to smiled softly while the thankfully no longer wailing man was looking at them with concern. 

“I thought we had to wait until the others get back before we break them” Ocht asked as the rest of the crew moved closer to the laughing Four leaving him enough space to breathe.

“Cap should be here with the others in a few minutes that’s close enough” Assara pointed out.

“They weren’t really expecting anything else I mean it is us.” Queen pointed out 

“Breathing helps” Tatala said, she didn’t appear to be looking towards Four be she was subtly making sure there was nothing physically wrong.

“Breathing helps _yeah it sure does_ Tatala do you have any other helpful advice” King turned to Tatala waving his arms frantically around and towards Four. 

“Drink lots of water,” she said with a grin wandering closer to the still laughing but calming down Four who was pointedly not looking towards the cabin for some reason, Tatala only realised this because when his eyes drifted over that way his giggles would increase.

“Drink wat- that’s not not what I meant and you know it.” King was even more frantic now.

“I just heard you asking for helpful advice and it is” Tatala sat down enjoying flustering King.

“Its you being a dick” King finally recognised they were being played and pouted at Tatala.

“She has a point you know” Ennea pointed out.

“You being a dick now too” turning to face Ennea who had decided to lean against the mast.

“I thought I had that removed” she reminded him “I paid good money for that as well.” 

“Fuck you-”King started

“Not my type” Ennea interrupted.

“FUCK YOU and you stole that money” King yelled pointing at her.

“Yeah you’re damn right I did” she said with a proud smile. Whilst the familiar bickering was going on all of the crew onboard had come closer mostly to sit on the floor but Queen and Assara who remained on their feet. 

“You guys are having fun then?” Ace called up from the side of the ship 

“Not my fault” King shouted down

“We were gone for five minuets.” Deuce sighed climbing up the ladder.

“A new record” Ace said after jumping to land on the ship’s railing

“Yeah it took Quinque here 15 to realise the ship had sailed” Jack shouted up from the bottom. 

“You guys were being fired at” Quinque complained, Klaus turned to look at the new person who had followed Deuce up the ladder, and the guy just looked like a disney prince. And Klaus was trying to remember which one when the voice from below interrupted. 

“You mean us guys” Jack when he appeared over the side had this wonderful braided orange and white hair, the braids were tiny and fell to his mid chest. White intricate spiral patterns stood out from his rich dark mahogany skin. Something about how he moved screamed confident not predator but someone who knew they were strong and had nothing to prove. 

“Cap sort them out please” King turned to their captain hoping to make them stop.

“I don’t know, they are having fun” Ace answered seeing the smiles on everyone’s face, yes this is what he wanted his crew his nakama happy and free.

“That’s it, I'm calling a mutiny” King decided “I’m sorry Cap” as they picked up a knife from their pockets ready to throw it.

“I didn’t know you wanted to be in charge so badly if you wanna lead them then go ahead” Ace laughed.

“Damn it” King replied knife going back into their pocket

“Spoilsport think of the easy life I could lead when not surrounded by you lot” Ace had to giggle out whilst Dolce who appeared out of nowhere, she was so tiny it was hard to notice her sometimes, ran across the deck.

“You’d be bored in seconds” Quinque pointed out, and Eric Klaus thought he looked like a darker more muscled Prince Eric.

“And then set everything on fire” Joker added making it a crew wide event to tease the Cap.

“Remember Tartaruga” Saith piped up.

“That wasn’t my fault” Ace turned round to face her.

“And L’uccello” Assara added.

“Okay that one’s on me.” Ace said dramatically pouting and fell into a heap on the deck.

“And-” Ocht started

“Oh come on” Ace through his arm over his eyes looking as if he was a tragic figure of myth who the world was unjustly cruel to. 

“Sure you don’t want me to mutiny Cap?” King suggested before climbing up the rigging to the watch post. 

“Oh a new person.” Quinque stated to the groan of Jack, who still couldn’t believe that his adorable curious boyfriend could miss the new person in a small group. “Hi I’m Quinque are you going to join us? Why are you joining us? Or don’t you know that’s fine as well. I didn’t know either. But it’s great I mean most of East blue is Ocean but you get to see some great things here and all the islands are marvelous, I mean I’ve heard the islands in the grand line are even more marvelous and decide to break all the rules we take for granted here the blues but isn’t that just fascinating I can’t wait to see it. Oh sorry I didn’t give you a chance to respond and I’m still doing it sorry.” 

Klaus stared up at the blushing man. “I’m here because a cat liked me?” Klaus guessed. “And umm I don’t really have any other reason to join you I’m not gonna be much help I’ve never been on a ship before.”

“Dolce is the one who picks the crew” Jack reassured Klaus “And the not being on a ship before that’s understandable but this just means you’re in for a treat when we set sail, you’re on the best ship.” This gathered a lot of agreeing noises from the rest of the crew. “I’m Jack you are?”

“Oh I’m Four and could you show me the way to the alcohol please.” Klaus wined out, he was going to go through withdrawal if none of them had drugs, and he could feel the itching and the stiff muscles starting but he could let these people know how useless he was without the drugs. Not when someone finally seemed to want him. The alcohol would help reduce the symptoms and if all else failed he could just drink the symptoms _everything_ away.

“Alcohol is in the kitchen, come on follow me.” Ace said jumping up and holding his hand out to Four who took it and allowed himself to be gently pulled up a second time, this time he did attempt to let go of Ace’s hand but Ace just held on with a smile and lead him deep into the ship.

The others turned to look at Tatala curious looks on their faces. “That’s- it could be nothing but if it’s not he has to decide for himself if he wants help, and if he doesn’t we gotta support him but it will be hard.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah I love you guys and I hope you like the spades.
> 
> So if I were to write a side story to this back in tua verse with the rest of the academy dealing with what happened to Klaus do you guys want to read it?


	4. the common tongue of you loving me

“Maybe you don’t have to drink that much?” Ben asked he and his ghostly entourage had followed Klaus and Ace through the ship and to the kitchen though Ben really did want a closer look at the glass bottom of the ship, he followed Klaus trying to get him to stay mildly sober was more important and he had a feeling that they were going to be staying on this ship for a while. 

Klaus waved his hand in response sure everyone he met knew he talked to _himself_ but it was nice to not be judged and he wanted to keep that feeling for a little longer.

“It’ll be good for you. They don’t seem as loud here. Look these guys are nice, okay so mustachio over here is loud but the lady seems like she keeps him in line.” Klaus did his best to ignore Ben and just drink the rum he was given, it didn’t have a mixer but he would take what he was given at this point. He knew Ace was watching him (as were the other two ghosts) and they were going to judge him for filling the pint? Mug up with rum, but he was already trying not to speak to the people only he could see to make a semi decent first impression, he couldn’t not consume one of his vices. ~~He knew he was a lost cause but he wanted to try, he always wanted to try and it always failed~~. Ace on the other hand by past the alcohol and went into one of the cupboards and pulled out a truly horrific amount of food and started to inhale the food. 

Both Klaus and Ben stared that was more food than they could eat in a week, and it was being inhaled. Klaus put the alcohol down not realising he had only consumed a little as he did so. He lent forward, not even Luther could eat so much in one sitting and he was still going. 

Almost as if he had jinxed them with his thoughts Ace fell forward his face hitting his plate and he was still. Had he died? Klaus and Ben moved towards him no ghost had appeared yet, but that didn’t mean anything sometimes they appeared quickly, sometimes it took days. A laugh filled the air and Klaus flinched it was the same one that Ace had and he turned around ready to see Ace behind him. But when he turned it was the lady Ben was talking to earlier. Actually looking at her the only difference between her and Ace was the colour of her hair and eyes and the bright red hibiscus in her hair.

“It’s okay he gets that from me, narcolepsy it’s called when you fall asleep without warning, though my baby does seem to fall asleep in his food most of the time. You’re brother said something about them being loud if your talking about ghosts well” she had a vicious smirk on her face and an aura of blood “they learnt not to come anywhere near my baby.”

“You _can_ see us” mustachio yelled “why didn’t you let go of my precious baby boy’s hand?” mustachio was pulling on his mustache and had huge rivers of tears flowing down his face.

“Hush dear I’m Rouge” the lady said turning to face mustachio “dear why don’t you check up on your other sons, I’m sure Shanks is doing something you’ll be interested in.” Mustachio left with a pout and was crying about his adorable lovely baby was too precious for the world.

“That was my husband, who is a little dramatic but most D’s are.” She smiled softly and ran her fingers through Ace’s hair knowing that he wouldn’t feel it but he was her baby she had watched him grow without her but she was always going to try. 

“You said you made the ghosts go away” Klaus focused on the most important thing she said, “how?” he was near begging, he was willing to beg to do anything to make them go away. Not hold Ace’s hand he could do that. He didn’t want to he liked holding people’s hand it assured him that they were alive but to keep them away he’d do _anything_.

“Well you might not know,” she said with a smile, “but I was a pirate captain in my own right the Queen of spades they called me, I don’t know where my son got the idea to name his crew the spades, must be my genes his _Gramps_ ” her voice was vicious again she could go from a sweet and doting mother to the pirate captain she claimed to be, and Klaus and Ben definitely believed it, in a fraction of a second and they were impressed, they only knew Alison who could do that and even then she had to rumour herself to be that fluid in facial transitions. “Was not happy shocked the hell out of him but didn’t give him a heart attack unfortunately, that’s what he gets for not telling my son anything about me.” 

She paused and took a deep breath “I’m sorry you were asking about keeping the ghosts away well the few people stupid enough to try and yell at my baby suffered at my hands, shame Garp still has my staff I would of liked to made my point with it seeing as he won’t _give_ it to my baby.” She then continued mumbling to herself “Garp’s a _good_ marine he says he’ll take care of our baby, not that he thought I’d die, but still Garp’s own son rebelled against him so hard he’s trying to take on the world. Not that he’s much better at least Rodger had no idea about Garp’s _parenting_ Dragon was raised by Garp he has no excuse. Tell him about me and give him this I tell him as I’m dying because the marines destroyed an entire island and what does he do. Make out like I’m a civilian who got taken advantage by Rodger. Like I couldn’t kick his ass.” 

Ben had turned to look at Rouge in awe she was able to interact with other ghost, _to make them stay away,_ he could learn to do that as well he didn’t have to stay and watch the ghosts try to rip Klaus apart mentally without being able to help. 

“Meooooow” the three awake people in the room turned to the doorway as a giant ginger cat came through. Ben and Klaus turned to look at each other to confirm there was a cat as large as a horse coming through the doors, well now they realised why the doors were so big on this ship. 

“...Can cats grow and change colour?” Klaus asked Rouge who giggled as the cat moved round Klaus to nudge Ace to the floor and lie on top of him.

“No it was Dolce you met before this is Kotatsu, who likes to find the warmest place to nap and since my son is a fire logia he’s the warmest place on the ship.” Kotatsu looked at Klaus gave a slow blink and then started to eat the food that was on Ace’s face. 

“Fire logia?” Ben asked he hadn’t yet asked Rouge how to fight other ghosts he was going to wait until Klaus was asleep he didn’t want to get his hopes up for nothing. He was also hating himself a little this place was so good for Klaus, there were no judgemental stares and somehow there was a group of people who wanted and accepted Klaus _so far_ his mind pointed out traitorously and he had to _die_ to get it. Ben wasn’t sure what had happened and knew that Klaus was alive now but he _saw_ Klaus be shot at and how his body had been riddled with holes and how he felt Klaus drag him to wherever they are now. Klaus didn’t seem to remember but Ben did and he wanted his brother safe and he’d let the horror rip the world apart if he had to. 

“Oh do you guys not know about the three types of devil fruits?” Rouge questioned tilting her head “It’s just with Four being able to see me, I thought you knew about them.” She didn’t notice but as she was playing with Ace’s hair she was able to move it a little, she was a little more tangible as was Ben though he wasn’t touching anything. Klaus was starting to feel safe with these ghosts. Safe enough that the barriers he instinctively put up to stop the screaming hoard from touching him were starting to lower. 

“Devil fruits?” Klaus and Ben chimed in together and then “jinxed, I got you first.” Klaus started to poke through where Ben was floating. He hadn’t made Ben tangible enough to touch yet but there was more resistance then there was usually not that the two of them noticed to busy making faces at each other.

“A devil fruit, you know the really gross tasting fruit you ate before you were able to see ghosts?” Rouge interrupted her tone the same as all parents when their child has asked them something and immediately gotten distracted. 

“I’ve always been able to see ghosts and I never ate a super gross fruit” Klaus distractedly answered sticking his tongue out.

“That’s... unusual I wonder if its a type of haki?” Rouge murmured out loud “Buggy and my Rodger have an over sensitive version of observation haki so maybe this is a version of that. Anyway” she snapped herself out of her thoughts “a devil fruit comes in three forms, all unique Ace’s logia powers means that his body is now made of fire and he can manipulate the flames around him.”

“That’s so cool,” Klaus yelled out he didn’t notice that Ace woke up and was quietly listening to Klaus speak “he like a super beefed up version of a fire bender. Ozai would have nothing on him.”

“I thought you didn’t like Ozai” Ben responded “and Zuko and Azula were better benders than him anyway?” Ben had enjoyed watching avatar greatly and had decided that he needed to watch all the series after watching a couple of episodes whilst Klaus was _indisposed_ with someone else. 

“I don’t he’s waaaaay too much like father for anyyyone to like him” Klaus was dragging the words out with a pointed eye roll “and yeah Zuko and Azula are better than him, but I was thinking of the Agni Kai Ozai all ready to shoot fire at his face and BAM he just turns into flames. He does turn into flames right?”

Ace had opened his eyes a little he didn’t want to spy on his crew member but there was a look on Four’s face that Ace _knew_ and how he reacted earlier reminded him of himself before he met _Sabo_ Luffy. Ace wasn’t sure what devil fruit Four had but with him talking to someone well this was a chance for Ace to know him better, he would tell him he _would_ , but with this Ace could try and think of a way to help, even if he couldn’t his crew was _fantastic_ and they would, Four was a Spade now and they stick together. _His crew had made that abundantly clear, they wouldn’t be leaving him behind even if it was better for them not to get attached to a monster like him._ He hadn’t told them who his father was he couldn’t he didn’t want them to look at him with hate and disgust, ~~or worse it was one thing for random strangers to say that he should of been drowned at birth, he couldn’t take it if his crew said that.~~

Rouge smiled and nodded her head. “Sweet he can turn into FIRE Ben, how cool is that, that’s way better than any of our powers, and all you have to do is eat a gross fruit. Do you think if I eat one I won’t have my powers anymore.”

Ace jumped up, or attempted too, Kotatsu was on top of him and sure he could lift him easily but he didn’t want to disturb him too much but Kotatsu felt him moving and moved off him. “If you’ve already eaten one devil fruit you can’t have another.” Kotatsu cut him off jumping on his back to be carried like a huge oversized scarf. 

And Damn that was attractive Klaus thought that huge cat and he didn’t even flinch, a surge of lust ran through him. “Wait if I haven’t eaten a devil fruit do you think I can have one or would that like effect the powers thing?” 

“Umm I don’t know, I’ve only ever heard about devil fruits giving you powers. Tatala would know more she’s the doc and the only one of us who’s from the grand line.” Ace really wanted to know what powers Four had but baby steps if Four didn’t want to tell them who or what Ben was he didn’t have too. 

Ace lead the way forward, Kotatsu seeing they were going to go through the door reluctantly jumped off Ace’s shoulders and skulked after him, Klaus and the ghostly entourage mustachio, still hadn’t reappeared _Rodger_ maybe Ben thought his name might be but kept quiet if Klaus was this focused he didn’t realise that he left most of the rum on the table he wasn’t going to do anything to disrupt his attention. 

* * *

“Tatala” the crew who were not on watch turned to see Ace who had half a face full of food, the other half Kotatsu had started to eat before he decided to join Ace in napping, and Klaus come up to the deck.

“Told you he fell asleep” Ocht held out her hand in the universal pay me sign.

“You let Ace near the kitchen of course he was going to eat” Ennea said brushing off her skirt “the great Ennea told you that.” 

“I said asleep” Ocht pointed out. The crew had decided that since Assara had lost the coin toss he was to take first watch and was currently sulking upside down from the watch deck, the others had decided to curl up together and were sending pleading looks towards Kotatsu who made the best pillow to join them.

“Ace food feeling comfortable equals sleep” Ennea replied cuddling closer to Queen who was snuggling closer, she had taken the last watch and was tired and was ready to sleep but her need to know more was keeping her up. 

“I’m not... that _bad_ ” Ace decided to but in seeing that he wouldn’t be able to talk to Tatala until the usual chaotic ways were settled. And that was honestly a relief he couldn’t think of the words he needed to explain Four and god wasn’t that a downer. Ace was well aware that he didn’t have the same _schooling_ as most people that it was focused more on survival then him being able to integrate into society and gramps wondered why he didn’t want to join the marines, but he still felt so dumb not being able to find the right words Quinque was helping him with his reading but sometimes it was just to much and the break gave him time to try and organise his thoughts. 

“Of course your not darling” Queen mumbled out reaching out and making grabby hands towards Ace, it was a toss up between Queen and Kotatsu who loved heat more and often Ace’s naps would have the two of them joining him. 

“You’re so mean to me” Ace pouted but went over to hug Queen who proceeded to latch on and sent a triumphant smirk to Kotatsu who mewled out pathetically but followed Ace over. Queen snuggled into Ace as Kotatsu curled so his head was resting on Ace’s chest. 

“I’m surprised Four didn’t try to get Kotatsu to carry him out here” Jack said he and Quinque were curled up together watching the sunset as Quinque traced the tattoos on Jack’s arms sharing quick kisses and adoring looks.

“Just because you did” Quinque shot back raising Jack’s hand to place a kiss on the back of it.

“It’s not just me” Jack shouted out turning round to face the others who all immediately schooled their faces to suggest that they would never even think of doing that. 

“Lazy bastard wouldn’t carry anyone” Deuce chipped in petting Kotatsu’s ears enjoying the loud purring he got in return.

“Noooooooo” Ace cried out “he’s a good bean” having to raise his voice to be heard over the loud purring. 

“Lazy cat” Jack answered as he pulled up Quinque and dragged them both over to the main group.

“Before you guys start arguing with Ace over how lazy the lazy cat is” Tatala spoke over the sound Ace made in response “Ace what did you need me for?” 

“Ummm well” Ace turned to look at Four he hadn’t had enough time, he had gotten distracted to think of the words and hoped that Four would have the words. Looking at Four Ace realised that he had the same blank look as he did.

“Did you injure yourself even though you can literally chose not to be solid?” Tatala asked being one of the few crew members who were there in the days before Ace ate his fruit and the challenge he had staying solid, and then the other challenge of making him not solid. The first few days were a challenge for everyone. 

“No” Ace pouted he was mostly in control of his fruit now sure he’d had it uncontrolled for a bit and would still turn into fire at strange times but at least he’d learnt how to control his intangibility.

“Are you sure?” Tatala questioned well aware that some members of the crew decided that they would not come to the doctor, she was making sure that they would not do that in the future. 

“No” Ace drawled out shifting to have Kotatsu’s head on his shoulders so he could cuddle him closer.

“No you got injured” Tatala inquired because that was easier than expected.

“Noooo, No I’m not injured” Ace pouted why were words hard and confusing he always got confused with that kind of questioning.

“Then?” Sometimes it was so hard to get Ace to focus on things others you couldn’t get him to stay on track for five seconds, she wanted to see if it was a form of ADHD but just because she was a child genius and one of the youngest doctors in the world it didn’t mean that she had the time to learn about all medical issues. 

“I need your grand line knowledge” Klaus tensed up this is where they ask questions and then look at him the same way his siblings did like he was a disappointment, like he was the weak link.

“How so?” Tatala questioned the blues’ were a lot calmer and none of the crew seemed to want knowledge of the grand line apart from queen who wanted to know the things needed to sail, not what the grand line was like they wanted it to be a surprise. 

“If someone already has powers without eating a devil fruit would the devil fruit work? Or cancel out the first power?” This was the best way Ace could word it and Ace hated dumb he felt.

“A hypothetical question I’d expect that from Quinque not you” Tatala was intrigued to how this question came up and was trying to subtly get some more information.

“I can have hypothetical things too” he wasn’t dumb and he knew Tatala wasn’t questioning him like that but he couldn’t help it.

“I know sweetie, but mostly you like to figure things out through practical means like how hot can I burn?” She could hear something in his tone that he was dealing with something most likely brought on by Garp or the Bandits and she wasn’t going to hurt them she swore an oath, but if the crew go into a fight with them well she was defending them and her oath didn’t count in battle. 

“You stopped me” Ace dragged out

“Because you were in a wooden house Ace anyway back to the hypothetical… I would say the original powers shouldn’t be affected if they weren’t from a devil fruit but since eating two fruits does something so bad they don’t actually tell you what happens I suggest that we don’t try it out.” Okay so she wasn’t able to find out anymore that way back to the intriguing question.

“What are the original powers?” King asked

“King” the crew chorused 

“What I’m curious aren’t you?” King defended themself.

“Well yes but no pressuring” Joker stated 

“And yet you pressure me” king argued back

“That's because your a dumbass and you have no problems pushing back and we all know where your do not cross lines are.” Joker said with an implicit duh in their voice.

Klaus spent the time the crew were bickering he could tell how much they cared for each other. And he wanted to be a part of that so badly and he could see Ben giving him encouraging nods and fuck it it was better to be out about it now then worry about it coming out when he cared more about them later. They have powers they might believe him. “I” he took a deep breath, “I can see dead people.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm not dead (I've just been in a different continent) but I hope you enjoy this


	5. be unbroken or be brave again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Waning for ableist slurs being used not by any of the crew members, also breakdowns several of them, and description of dissociations

“I can see dead people.” Klaus took a breath this is where they kick him off the ship, no one wants to believe that that’s true, _you’re just a goddamn crazy schizo,_ he had the words of the one person he trusted outside the academy before he learnt to play it off with a smile and a laugh. But Ben was smiling and had his hands on his shoulders and he was imagining the warmth of his hands, _it was so much more real this time_ if he didn’t look he would never notice that it was a ghost touching him. 

“That’s so cool you can get so much information” Deuce blurted out, a grin on his face, so much information, so much blackmail potential. Queen for once your unique way of travelling is paying off big time. His mind was already thinking of the different plots he could be orchestrating to notice the expression on Four’s face. 

“Why would the dead suddenly be nicer then the living unless you can control them?” Saith pointed out, to Deuce’s internal panic for a moment he wanted the blackmail was there a way to bribe ghosts? Saith on the other hand had a much darker view of people and only trusted the crew members Dolce had proved herself a good judge of character when she had killed the _slavers,_ the words dripped with venom even in her mind, that had hidden as merchants before anyone else had a clue, but if this new person and she liked him, she did he seemed just as messed up as her, was going to control people well he wasn’t the first person she liked she had killed. 

“That would be creepy” Ocht pointed out threading her fingers through her long hair. 

“Like you can talk lovely” Ennea shot back the crew had stopped being obviously sleepy temporally being wide awake because of crew bonding times, and gossip. 

“Wait are we haunted?” King asked wanting to know if they have watchers and if the ghosts count as crew members because they were not going to give up their name they had earned it they weren’t yet sure how to fight a ghost but they would find out. It’s not like they were against having ghosts are crew members but they were king and ready to fight to keep their name.

“Why would we be haunted?” Quinque asked bringing attention from Four who looked as pale as the ghosts he could see and on to him which was never a bad thing, especially if it means Jack looked at him softly, not that that was hard but it was always a lovely feeling to have Jack looking at him. 

“Why wouldn't we be?” Saith pointed out she knew if she was ever killed she would find a way to haunt whoever the unfortunate person was, if she didn’t take them down with her. 

“The people we’ve killed” Assara tacked on. He had heard and seen that something was going on and decided that he was going to find out what was happening, the marines hadn’t even come close to this side of the island that he could see and the weird sensing power he had, had confirmed it, Tatala had talked about it being a grand line thing, seeing as she came from there he was inclined to listen to her and anyway it was proof that he was meant to go to the grand line with his crew and captain there was no way Assara could ever follow someone weaker than himself. 

“I’ve not killed anyone” Quinque shot back, and it was true for him he was too busy being curious about everything to attack someone, and when the ship was attacked he was helping Queen navigate and maneuver the ship, he didn’t want to kill anyone not that he wouldn’t the crew were more important than random strangers but he didn’t want to kill.

“Not yet” Saith added the bounties the crew were rapidly increasing to the point where they in the scant few weeks they had been sailing they were already the crew with the highest bounty by far in the east blue, and it wasn’t even just the captain and first mate with a bounty like most newbie crews, everyone apart from Four had a bounty that wouldn’t be out of place in the grand line. And that means that bounty hunters and the marines were coming after them. 

“What if he has to see how they look when they die, that could be fun” Ocht said a disturbing grin on her face just too small and sharp to look quite right. She was still up against the wall and the Spades had gotten used to the extremely innocent looking girl speaking and acting in a way that was very opposed to her looks. Most people never could look past her looks to see that her bounty was earned to their quick demise. 

“GUYS!” Ennea yelled moving away from Queen, who did not appreciate loud voices near her ear which took Ennea a week to work out, well not work out but learn to modulate her voice before Queen knocked her permanently overboard. 

“Yeah?” a chorus of voices spoke up over each other “Sup?” Ace was the only one not speaking looking at Four’s face and the shock that was displayed and sure most of East Blue thought devil fruits were a myth, but still shouldn’t have some people believed him, or enough that his face shouldn’t be showing such a lost expression. “What?” was a final directed question from Saith.

“Maybe you should follow the great Ennea’s idea and don’t talk over him and listen.” Ennea said pulling her reversed pyramid lamp out from somewhere and twirling the beaded cord the lamp swung from round her fingers. There was something demanding about the lamp how it was tinted black and just so very _hard_ to look away from, so you didn’t notice the senbon that were usually hidden in her hair being thrown at you, of course the lamp wasn’t just a distraction Ennea had proved that she was very capable of strangling someone with the cord, and her and Ace working in tandem had installed a deep pyrophobia in the survivors of their tag team attacks. 

“The great Ennea not talking over someone” Queen lifted her hand to her forehead and lent backwards dramatically “I’m in shock catch me I can’t-” sending a pout towards King who hadn’t twitched to catch her, since Queen was being used as a teddy bear by Kotatsu she had a soft place to land.

“Bite me” the lamp was placed to the side as the crew were focusing on moving around trying to stay cosy and on guard, the crew was ready to just talk hypotheticals since Four still hadn’t said a word just staring at them pale faced, sure they _wanted_ to know but they were intrigued by the possibilities.

“You know I’m always down for that” was Queen’s automatic reply with a smirk fixed on her face. In between the eye rolls Queen’s flirting gave, Queen would flirt with any woman happily however the person of her actual affections (King) had not realised that a) Queen was flirting with them b) was actually interested in them romantically. 

“No one has ever actually asked before” Four managed to get out and he couldn’t really explain how much it meant that these strangers just believed him with no proof, he could remember how for ages no one would actually believe him when he talked about people only he could see, how much Reggie hated him his useless crazy child. When five of his siblings could do things that were beyond belief, and the only other one who didn’t have powers at least wasn’t crazy, everyone just ignored what he was saying. Until Ben had listened to him one night when it was too much to listen to the screaming by himself and was repeating what the ghost was say how exactly he had been killed, and told Pogo who convinced Reggie to look into the details that Klaus could not of known before anyone realised he wasn’t hallucinating. No one ever just trusted what he said. 

“We’ve never met a ghost before so new experiences all round” Joker said, silent up until this point, some training just didn’t let up easily and they were quiet person in general ready to wait until they had a feel of the conversation before saying anything. 

“Wait are there ghosts here?” Assara asked confused he couldn’t _feel_ anyone else other then the crew and he could almost always feel when someone was nearby, the only exception was that one marine ship which had a captain from the grand line, he couldn’t feel her though he could feel her crew so there was something he was missing and it forced him to try and make the sense more accurate and if ghosts could make themselves invisible to this sense he had then he wanted to know how it worked, he never wanted someone to slip past his guard again. 

“There’s two there was three but mustachio was kicked off to go cry over another one of his sons.” Four was just confused and floating in a pleasant confused numbness, it didn’t feel real so he might as well just go along with it. Ben was giving him encouraging smiles and although he felt like part of him was missing he had never felt so at peace. 

“So who’s dad is haunting us?” Deuce asked looking around to see which crew member was going to react, determinedly choosing to look at Ace last from what the little the captain was willing to tell about his childhood neither of his parents were around and he did not seem happy at all to even admit that he _had_ a father. 

“Ace babe-” Queen started only to be cut off by Quinque 

“Hey Cap why are you pale?” Quinque asked oblivious to the tension that surrounded Ace and the rest of the crew, who were sending each other concerning looks.

“Mustachio? That’s a great name!” Ennea yelled ignoring Queen batting at her arm in displeasure. Smiling gleefully fully aware of the shaky breath her captain was taking now that all eyes were focusing on her and not him.

“Babe that’s probs a description not a name” King piped in for Queen, who wasn’t going to speak to someone who was shouting down her ear, who was still batting at Ennea, until a few seconds later when she registered what they said and started sending sad looks towards King because seriously Ennea got called babe and not her, the ghosts took priority but Queen had to step up her flirting game now. 

“I knew that” Ennea said now that all eyes were on her, King, and Queen she lowered her voice to normal speaking levels “but that doesn’t stop it from being a good name.” 

“Ghosts are real do you know what that means” Assara said not looking at Dolce stepping around the bodies of the crew in order to make her way to Ace and start purring really loudly and seeing how tightly Ace was clinging to her, not enough to hurt her but enough that Assara could tell Ace really needed the comfort Dolce was giving him. 

“Death is not the eternal rest but in fact a way to trap us into this realm once we shuffle off our mortal coil” Saith said plaiting her hair out of her face a small dark grin on her face maybe she could have her vengeance after all.

“No and that's morbid, Saith” Assara pressed out, his eyes to the sky. 

“That's me” Saith instantly shot back with a macabre grin.

“Can you choose who you see because we could answer so many questions about the void? Blank century whichever one it is” Quinque asked the implications only hitting him now, and he was following in Deuce’s thoughts that the ghosts could give them information, though unlike Deuce Quinque was honestly just interested in what the ghosts could tell him, not how to manipulate people. 

“If you can’t remember what it’s called how will they know what the heck you are talking about?” Assara replied pressing his face into Quinque’s curls. At least it was never boring anywhere near this crew Assara thought even on the quiet days something like this would happen or Quinque would stumble upon something unusual or a fire would be ‘accidentally’ set or accidentally set neither usually involving the one person in the crew actually made of fire. Internally making a reminder to see if there was anything they could do to make the ship fireproof seeing as the crew are all pyromaniacs.

“GUYS! Maybe now isn’t the time?” Joker yelled out startling Ocht, who as the second newest member of the crew hadn’t yet heard Joker raise their voice. The crew members who were there when Joker was recruited could remember the rage in their voice as they screamed out towards the burning wreck of a marine base. Screaming of betrayal and how they didn’t stop screaming for hours. ~~None of the crew liked to remember the quiet _sobs_ begging for forgiveness as they cried. ~~ Most of the crew had been aware that the marines weren’t always the best and did not uphold justice but they had never seen someone who _believed_ in them have that belief shattered in front of them. None of the crew knew what Joker was like before they had only seen them part way them through their breakdown. 

“When else are we going to know these things?” Saith shot back determined to know she had put to rest the idea of vengeance it could never be justice, ~~justice implied that what they did to her could be answered to and it could never there was only pain and the need to do~~ ~~_something_ ~~ ~~to quiet the screaming inside~~ , but it burnt in her chest again she could make them _hurt._ Not in the way they hurt her, because she could still feel the physical pain aching through her body weeks after they had finished _playing_ with her. Even now after Tatala had soothed the worst of the pain healed the worst of the injuries the pain was still there, same with the mental pain, that was still there but with the crew it was softened and she could feel not safe but _safer_. 

“Whenever our newest crew mate wants to tell us but for now I think he needs a hug” Quinque interrupted Saith’s thoughts and she felt something that if looked through a warped and cracked glass looked like it could maybe be shame.

“Fuck we are the worst crew mates ever Ace babe, Four darling get over here” Queen had given up Kotatsu as a cuddle buddy and instead had wrapped around Four clinging to his shoulders feeling the tiny shivers she couldn’t see, she could also feel something to the side of her, a pressure, so she was assuming that was one of the ghosts. And then she was hit with the full force of the crew barrelling into her, well technically Four and Ace but seeing as the were pushing them into her it counted. 

Klaus was clinging to the arms that were surrounding him unsure who it was that was holding him only that it had to be more than one person due to the number of arms and he was so close to crying they believed him instantly and they were _touching_ him not trying to bat his hands away. He could never tell who was alive or dead, his siblings all thought that he could see through the ghosts or they were blue and see through. But he couldn’t every ghost looked as real as the living people around him and he just wanted to know if they were still alive, that was never a sure thing with his father’s training ~~number seven back before they had names went for training and Klaus could never really feel her again, she went down and it was like part of her had gone, in the end he stopped trying to reach out to her she was too much like him part of her somewhere else and he wasn’t going to drag her into seeing the ghosts with him no matter how much she thought she wanted a power, she would never want this one.~~

Someone was holding his hand back it was clammy and cold and scared and Klaus could understand he was scared of the ghosts ~~and himself~~ as well, but then hand was clutching back not hard enough to hurt but like they didn’t want to let go. And then he could hear a quiet voice asking “Who were the other ghosts?” no one had really heard Ace’s voice be that, hesitant or scared before. 

Klaus could see Rouge, after moving his head past one of the arms and she was smiling and warm and Ben was there and he was _happy_ and for once didn’t seem disappointed in Klaus and he felt soft and safe and the only way this could be better is if Ben was here, really here, if he could be joining in on the hug pile. And he wanted that more than anything in this moment more than alcohol, more than drugs. And he looked at Rouge and could see how much she, like Ben wanted to be there, but also how much she looked like mum, when Dad wasn’t there shooting disapproval into the room. And it wasn’t fair that they weren’t here unknown to everyone as his hands were covered by bodies, Four’s hands were lighting up and two more bodies appeared on the deck outlined in a misty blue sheen.

“Klaus” Ben reached out wanting more then anything to touch his brother, and it was going to work this time, maybe. _He had thought that so many times before; trying to keep Klaus warm, or out of the rain, or reaching out to take the pills from him, or try to stop the bullets coming towards his brother as he lured the gunman away._ He wasn’t expecting to touch someone’s arm, or the resulting scream.

Tatala screamed, she wasn't super proud of it but come on she was not expecting someone to touch her from behind there was a hug pile up going on and she was on the outside of it there shouldn’t have been anyone behind her. And yes they had just had a conversation about ghosts but one conversation was not enough for her to get used to the idea of them.

The scream caused everyone to pull apart a little not enough to have distance between the bodies but enough for them to move to see what caused the screaming and Klaus stepped forward dragging Ace, and Ennea who was still clinging to Klaus’ shoulders. 

“So can we mention that ghosts can touch people next time please” Tatala gritted out, the ghost seemed just as shocked as she was, if not more, staring at his hand in confusion before looking up at them and _sprinting_ forward to grab Four in a hug muttering a stream of words to low to be heard. 

“Ace” the other ghost started, and the crew turned to look at her letting Four and the other ghost have some privacy as the crew could see how tightly they were clinging to each other, and honestly the woman was so familiar, Ocht was annoyed with herself she _knew_ that face. It was only seeing Ace out of the corner of her eye that made her realise where she knew that face from. This woman with long hair and a hesitant hopeful look was wearing her captain’s face.

“Mum?” and there were tears in matching eyes, and the blue light made it impossible to see what colour the woman’s were but everything else was the same and suddenly there wasn’t just one person hugging a ghost, Ace and his mum(?) were hugging. 

And the crew were trying so hard not to listen to the conversation, and in Deuce’s case he was trying as hard as possible not to interrupt but the spying and blackmail possibilities which were right there were so tempting but he held himself back. But the crew no matter how hard they tried could block out the words that were pouring out of his mouth. The didn’t make sense, the words individually did but… they couldn’t believe them. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry” were repeated like a mantra every time Ace paused to breathe and Tatala was not liking the sound of his breathing it was far too fast and shallow and deliberately ignoring or not she was going to have to intervene soon, before her captain ending up having a panic attack. And then there were the other things Ace was saying that he was sorry for being born, and he was a monster and begging for forgiveness. Tatala shared a look with her crew and with that look they all agreed that they would fight this lady even if their captain loved her, if she even suggested that it was Ace’s fault for being born _and they were going to find out who put those ideas in his head._

“My baby” Rouge’s voice cut through Ace’s panic, and she had watched her child grow up and she knew he hated being his father’s son- but she never thought never in her worst nightmares could she ever have thought that her baby believed he killed her. In her shock (and outrage the part of her that hated Garp from keeping her staff and her deeds as a pirate away from her son grew larger) she lost her words and she had to listen to her son _begging_ for _forgiveness_ and her heart shattered, she broke inside and she would spend the rest of her not life trying to make it up to her love her child.

“I love you” she managed to get out past the lump in her throat pulling Ace into a hug being able to hug her child (and him being able to _feel_ it not just her passing through him) was something she never thought she’d be able to feel again. “You were a gift the most precious gift I could have ever had, how could I not love you?” 

“But I _killed_ you” being pulled into his mother’s arms caused Ace to fall silent in shock as his mind worked overtime, Gramps had only ever told him how much of a _monster_ his father was and then everyone and how much they were glad that he didn’t exist and how the world would be better off if he drowned if he did exist (Ace never spoke of the belief he had that it would of been better if he had never been born then his mother would still be alive and she was worth so much more than he was he was just the monster that had killed her that was the only thing that Gramps had told him about his mother that she named him and died. Gramps never said it was his fault but Ace could read between the lines she died because she gave birth to a monster.) It didn’t make sense to him how his mother could _love_ him. 

“No, my love you didn’t” Rogue cut through whatever horrible self deprecating thing her son was going to say next because she couldn’t bear to hear it. And she could finally be a mother to Ace like he deserved and she wasn’t going to let these awful horrible ideas sit in her baby’s head any longer and he could hear her and it didn’t matter that her heart was breaking, she could break down later (and destroy Garp the way he destroyed her son) Ace needed her. “That was the marines fault, because of them, there were no doctors and that’s what killed me it was never you my love. You were a gift the most precious gift.” 

“But” Ace’s voice was cracking _breaking_ and it hurt to go against what his mother thought however he couldn’t accept the words she was saying they couldn’t fit into his world view, the view almost everyone had confirmed since before he could remember. All he could think of was Dandan talking to her bandits speaking of the devil child the demon child the _cursed wretched child that was forced upon them._ The town’s folk throwing and screaming at him even without them knowing who he was, just that there must have been something about him that confirmed he was _wrong._ (Even this didn’t quite make sense ~~Sabo~~ Luffy cared for him _loved_ him, Makino taught him and never _cursed_ him even appeared to worry for him, Dadan even gave him his necklace made from the same beads she was wearing which meant something.) Ace knew that social skills were something beyond him he just didn’t understand people ~~he knew he knew even less of kindness~~ ~~.~~ And so he couldn’t understand why his mother looked at him as if he was something to be treasured, something precious.

“But nothing. You are my light my darling precious boy and I love you.” Rouge wanted to cry even more than she wanted to rage, but for the first time she could hug him the way she _tried_ for years and she could bite back her rage, could endure any hardship to continue holding him. Including this hardship but she was Portgas D. Rouge and just as she had faced her enemies before and destroyed them she would defeat this enemy as well. 

Ace just breathed into her shoulder pressing his face deeper so he didn’t have to look at the expression on her face to try to figure out what exactly she meant (part of him wished Luffy was here so someone would explain what she was thinking, no part of him wished she wasn’t here this was a thousand dreams come true, a billion nightmares proved false.) 

Most of the spades did their best _not_ to stare they had realised their captain had issues but it seemed they ran deeper than anyone thought, Assara shared a look with Tatala the moustache man Four had mentioned earlier wasn’t here which meant there was a _possibility_ that he(?) would show up and since it was Ace’s mum- they tried so hard not to listen to what Ace was saying, but it was hard to tune out words, it was even harder to tune out a crew mate in pain. And they had to listen to what she said they were Ace’s crew they needed to protect him just as he would have done, and yes she was comforting Ace but they didn’t _know_ and they still had to be on guard against mustachio.

Ace wasn’t they only crew member the others were trying to respectfully, sort of not over hear. It wasn’t the tearful denial of Ace, these tears were quiet someone who knew that tears would only make it _worse_ . Saith knew that sound in her bones ~~in her scares~~ and she longed for something to take her mind off this, it was too much, part of her was still getting used to caring for so many people again. It was impossible not to care unless you were willing to go around in a mindless haze feeling nothing- and sometimes that was a good thing it wasn’t _your_ body that was hurting even though it was, it was just a case or something, sometimes you could pass hours ~~or days~~ and not notice. But Saith couldn’t do that anymore, the numbness was always there ready to consume her again and sometimes it did but she wasn’t going to let it she was free and that meant allowing herself to feel things again. Even if it meant listening and caring for the two sobbing crew members holding on to ghosts. 

Ben and Klaus however couldn’t speak couldn’t imagine this that they could once again hold each other and yes Ben had never left, he had been with Klaus through the bad times, the rare good times, the mundane times where nothing _important_ was happening but when the world was quiet and they could breathe and talk and exist together without the pressure of the academy and the embers of rage were nurtured in both of them when they had this chance but only after one of them had died; _technically_ Klaus had died as well as Ben but since he was resuscitated before he could meet the girl on the bike it didn’t actually count. And for once Ben could _b r e a t h e_ he didn’t physically have to of course, but he could finally interact with his brother could hug him the way he’d dreamed about for years. It was that realisation that cemented Ben’s love of the crew they just believed Klaus, and it _burned_ that they believed him and Ben didn’t and it didn’t matter to him that he was a child and he was following the social cues given by Pogo and their father that he was a _child_ he helped his brother believe that he was insane and these people just believed Klaus. Ben had always been the most emotionally competent of his siblings he could read on Klaus’ face and his body language the loosening of his shoulders how much it meant that they believed him no question. This crew of apparent killers not that he had room to talk he had more blood on his hands ~~his tentacles~~ had somehow managed to let(?) Klaus make him physical again. Ben was stuck on his words and his thoughts and he didn’t care he could hug his little brother. Sure they were all the same age to the minuet (if you didn’t count the different hours due to time zones) but Klaus had always been the little brother there was just something so fragile and annoying about him and from what Five gathered that was the purpose of the youngest. And Klaus along with Vanya fit that description.

But the bliss of being solid again had started to rub off, not that it would ever go away completely but he could hold his little brother’s hand and pay attention to the world around him again. Apparently something else had been going on, and he could finally pay enough attention to his surrounds to make out words instead of white noise, a woman’s voice saying “You are my light my darling precious boy and I love you” and that was the woman from earlier Rouge if he remembered rightly the lady he planned to beg to find out how to fight other ghosts. He still planned on asking her but now his plans included fighting living people as well. 

Suddenly there was a loud confused noise, that apparently came from someone’s mouth. “I was gone five minuets and you figured out how to hug our son and you kept it from me?!” All of the crew apart from Ace, who pressed his head further into his ghost mother’s shoulder, turned to look at the source of this new noise, Assara was definitely going to grab one of these ghosts and figure out how they were hiding from his- and he hated to think it- mystery sense it seemed a pity he’s have to share time with Deuce who appeared to be ten seconds away from asking a ghost to start collecting blackmail, the dude was not subtle. Hat was even less subtle was the noise some of the crew was making and if it wasn’t for the fact he was on watch and was annoyed by these three people sneaking past his mystery sense- that they were ghosts shouldn’t change anything- as such had to check to see that the marines weren’t coming, and sure the back flips weren’t strictly necessary but they looked great, he would have figured out who exactly were making the noises. He assumed Tatala since she was one of the few crew members who knew what life was life beyond the East Blue was one of the people making noises, but all it was was another ghost with a stupid moustache and Four was right Mustachio did fit the guy as a name.

Tatala stared at the ghost that appeared she _knew_ that face, she’d never met him but she had heard what her family said about him, the careful condemning in public around the marines, and the glowing praise behind closed doors. Along with him being the focus of how easily things can be twisted by news reports and how even if something or someone is trustworthy it doesn’t always mean that their source is- or that they aren’t saying it in a different context. Tatala loved her family from the moment she knew she wanted to sail to explore they did everything they could to ensure she would be safe. But he mind stuttered over the pirate king appearing on their crew, from context she guessed he was the father Ace never mentioned but she didn’t have enough information and this was the east blue where the marines had the biggest presence how was Ace even alive, and younger than the timeline would expect him to be, it appeared she had time to figure it out but she wasn’t going to interrupt what was happening here, and she was too curious to give them privacy.

Deuce tried to share a look with someone _anyone_ but they were all too busy staring at the pirate king and suddenly Ace hating his father and not wanting to speak of him made sense. Seeing that no one was moving he through his arms up in the air and went towards the kitchen Four was right they did need alcohol, and if took a second to push past the marine propaganda he didn’t think he internalised well it was better to do it here and not in front of his captain.

Jack, unlike most of the crew hadn’t actually interacted with marines much or with many people outside his home he was sort of isolated and he knew it and he loved how curious his boyfriend was how much of the world Quinque wanted to explore and know about, so it was odd that he knew this man according to his parents he had met Roger, one of the few people trusted with the location of their home the sea _sang_ Roger to them his mother would say, which never made any sense to Jack until he saw how Queen sailed sometimes with her eyes closed just reacting to something no one else could understand. His parents had never mentioned how emotional read ridiculous the man was though. He could feel Quinque tapping on his arm in the codes that they had started to create his confusion over the man and it felt nice to be able to help his boyfriend with his knowledge quest. Their code hadn’t yet worked out how to communicate complex answers so in a quiet voice trying not to distract the others Jack whispered “that looks like the pirate king.” He could feel Quinque starting to respond however it turned out he hadn’t been speaking quietly enough since King started to shout.

“I’m King I don’t know who you are and I don’t care but as long as you’re on this ship I’m the only King around here.” Maybe it was a dumb impetuous decision but they wanted to do it so they did and sure they could of waited but they weren’t going to let any random person steal their name especially one with a terrible mustachio.

“King’s right” Ennea’s loud voice chimed in not breaking the silence because the waves were still crashing, Four was still making these little content noises, Ace was still crying with his breathing still hitching, and more importantly, King's statement wasn’t really that shocking for the rest of the crew. The crew who were aware of who exactly the ghost man was, were more shocked that king didn’t recognise him. “You with the terrible moustache shall be called mustachio since that is a much better name than what that moustache deserves.” Ennea’s voice still carried throughout the ship and Deuce from down below starting to run with his arms full of bottles because Ennea yelling that pirate king had a terrible moustache was not going to go down well. 

Except when Deuce managed to make it back on to the deck (his lungs burned and hated him but he’d never run that fast before and it seemed like nothing had happened) in fact he managed to get up top quickly enough to hear Ace’s sobs turn into tiny hysterical giggling and whatever Deuce was expecting the former pirate king’s ~~mustachio’s~~ reaction to be _a quick destruction of the ship, he was working on it._ He was not expecting the hopeless adoring look the man sent towards Ace who had lifted his head from his mum’s shoulders and was shyly looking at the crew who were either smiling or giggling themselves at Ennea’s words. 

Helplessly Deuce lifted one of the bottles and asked “anybody want a drink?” Queen immediately grabbed the bottle and took a long swing of it turned to look between Ace and his parents and took another long drink. Deuce sent a judgemental stare yes he was a hypocrite but at least he was dealing with it in private.

“Don’t give me that look look at her” Queen pointed with the hand not holding the bottle towards Ace’s mum and Queen really wanted to learn her name “look at him” the arm now moving to point at Roger “and tell me how the hell someone who looks like him could get someone that pretty.”

Suddenly Ace’s dad being the pirate king was all but forgotten in favour of this new more urgent question, the crew (including Four and the ghost he was hugging) were looking between Roger and Rouge and making agreeing noises.

“Ace babe don’t worry” Queen continued “You look just like your mum and everyone knows that you look good, you just got your colouring from mustachio and it works.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was meant to be happy and so help me it will be happy, this has now become my nanowrimo project so hopefully i should be able to update more often


	6. with every stranger

It had been over a month since Buggy had last heard about the latest nonsense the Spade pirates had gotten into and it was driving him mad. He was sure that they would be okay, originally. He  _ knew  _ how much trouble a cocky group of pirates could make  ~~ he didn’t want to think of himself- he was the cautious one in his group and they  _ never  _ listened to him never cared when he fell overboard when all he could hear was screaming, ~~ and he was determined to make sure they realised what they were getting into. What the pirates did after that well... he tried and that was more than he could say about anyone else. He  _ wasn’t  _ thinking of someone else who was in the prime spot to ensure that people weren’t getting ahead of themselves  _ he wasn’t  _ and not just because instead of warning the brats he just let them go on,  _ on to pain and hardship he  _ knew  _ they weren’t ready for _ . Buggy was determined to never set foot back into the grand line but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have people on the other side and he heard things about new pirate crews how  _ unprepared _ they were and how  ~~ Crocus ~~ that man just let them through.

“Captain” Cabaji had cycled past the rest of the crew who had gathered around some explosion on the island they were camped on to find his captain. Buggy could hear the cheering from where he was sitting half hidden away something fun had happened and for some reason his crew did consider that an explosion was the start of a good party. “Come on Captain, Mohji found another cat to rival Richie and I think Richie might actually win this time.” Cabaji prodded his captain with a smile. 

From somewhere in the distance you could hear a group of people screaming, and Mohji felt the urge to encourage Richie to shred Cabaji’s jacket. This wasn’t an unusual feeling so he brushed it off helping the crew prepare a quick coliseum-esk vantage point. They hadn’t seen another cat as big as Richie before and were interested in the results and if they could cheer up their captain a bit well, he’d only been not his flashy self for the past day or so, they had a few more days before they had to do something  _ drastic. _

Cabaji stomped down on the instinctive yell he wanted to let out, that smirk there was his flashy captain, damn you Richie the fact that it was Richie who got a smile back on his captain’s face- well looks like he’d have to step up his game. “Come on their setting up a ring to watch” determined to figure out a way to one up Richie and Mohji he didn’t realise that Buggy  _ hadn’t  _ followed him towards the screams.

If Buggy wasn’t used to the feeling of falling apart (in more ways than one) he would say he was feeling that now, not out loud of course, but he was annoyed with himself and he didn’t know why he cared so much about a crew he never even met, and decided were monstrous enough to survive the grand line. He spent a week chasing them down after they first appeared half worried out of his mind as far as he was aware no other crew got DAILY increases in their bounty- on one day it was raised three separate times- and the crew were either going to implode violently or were going to go on to be a monster crew. It wasn’t until he saw the captain of the Spades crew face on a wanted poster that he stopped worrying as much. In fact all of his instinct were pressing every avoid, do not anger buttons he  _ had _ . His instincts had never failed him before  _ a lie they failed him with his first crew his home until their captain died and the rest of the crew were all too happy to abandon two young brats to the mercy of the grand line. _ But he listened to them and trusted that the Spades didn’t need to be warned and the way they were destroying marine bases like it was a game made him agree with his instincts. One of his very unfortunate or fortunate, depending on your point of view, informants watched as they wrecked havoc on that poor base. He was saving the video for dark days and to show a certain red haired moron in person. He thought that any crew that made a game of the most destruction they could cause would be fine. But it had been a month now and there was silence.

Absolute silence, no marine bragging- though Garp was panicking like a mother hen no not a mother hen like some large angry animal who’s plans were not going at all like they wanted, no newspaper report or the Spades hijacking a radio station which they liked to do just to play odd music who had a song about being a corpse who was in love or being in love with a corpse or well he wasn’t actually sure what they were singing about, there was one song that just sounded like their lover was their sunlight and he didn’t hear any mention of corpses but he thought that about other songs and had to answer some very pointed questions from some of the crew members and now he trusts none of their songs no matter how good they were. And who ever it was singing them and he could hear at least three different voices could  _ sing _ . And he was trying not to think about why the disappearance  ~~_ death _ ~~ of the Spades  ~~_ their captain _ ~~ was affecting him this much. When they first vanished everyone seemed to be waiting for them to do something huge and stupid  _ considering who’s crew he was on Buggy had lots of experience in crews doing stupid things  _ but the longer the month dragged on the more and more unlikely it was that they were just plotting something. 

And Buggy couldn't explain why to his crew  _ his dumb, stupid, wonderful crew _ why he cared so much to the point where he wasn’t being his usual flashy self. And then there was suddenly something a group of people on the edge of his haki and god he was out of it he was getting complacent and the disappearance of a baby monster crew should have snapped him out of it. It’s not like he hadn’t noticed them he just was too involved in himself to think about his crew. And he wasn’t going to turn into Crocus he wasn’t. Or the rest of the crew but Crocus had been there when Buggy needed him and he  _ turned away.  _

Buggy never quite realised how hard he was on himself. The presences he was feeling had already been on the island before they landed and he had clocked them but since they weren’t near his crew he had just let them fade into the background noise of the island just focusing on using haki to check on the crew. It was only now when the presences were making their way towards his distracted crew- not that he could blame them he also wanted to see this other giant cat, he’d only ever seen one animal (Richie) grow as big as the grand line animals over here in East Blue. He was not taking Shanks’ word that there was a small island over here filled with oversized animals and he was going NOWHERE near the island Monkey D. Garp called home, he liked living and attempting to punch a vice admiral was not conducive to that. 

So Buggy made his choice and, instead of following Cabaji towards his band of pirates, he turned towards the presence he could feel, hiding his own haki as he did so. He never had the words to explain how he could make himself invisible whilst sensing everyone else. He could  _ never  _ turn it off, he had tried everything he tried just made it louder  _ not just louder but he could feel them choking him being too much their feelings bleeding into him and feeling too much like he was drowning being crushed and pulled apart all at once  _ and through all that his own terror freezing him as the adults who were supposed to look after him- and wasn’t he an idiot he thought he had learned that he couldn’t trust anyone way back before he even met the Roger pirates but Shanks had been there, had never tried to force him to do anything, apart from acknowledging he was right over whatever argument they were having this time, but he had been there and safe. And Roger who  _ saw  _ him, a small useless brat from the gutter who tried to steal from him, and instead stole Buggy and Shanks to safety to a home. Only to bring them to war. 

When all he wanted to do was hide, where all he could feel was pain and fear and death, and he couldn’t hide from that. But he could hide from people, it was the sheer amount of haki that he could feel that allowed him to hide his presence, he wasn’t getting rid of it, suppressing it the way most people did that just left a void he could use to find them. Rockstar was one of the few people he had ever met that didn’t hide it, he just made it smaller as if the presence wasn’t human so people would gloss right over him unless they were paying a lot of attention. Buggy didn’t do this either, he just put into practise his original skill set, to fade into the crowd, to become nothing special, to blend in and that’s what he did with his presence. He didn’t have the words for it but the best he could describe was scattering(?) parts of himself. The Bara Bara no Mi had helped him refine what life on the streets had already taught him.

It might have been overkill to hide his presence from the group of non marine’s- honestly they were easy to avoid most of the time their patrol paths never changed- or Arlong’s crew who didn’t venture this far south, but it was what kept him alive and he  _ wasn’t _ going to abandon his crew, not even to death. He sent out his eye first, as he didn’t want anyone to know just how much freedom his fruit gave him in terms of spying, not even that he learned he could send most of his internal body away  ~~ he was not thinking of how he learned this was not thinking about what he  _ saw what happened to them what almost happened to him _ ~~ and still make it look like his body was in one piece  ~~ it still hurt no doubt but then again if his lungs weren’t in his chest he could still breathe. ~~

It wasn’t what he was expecting. Honestly he had been expecting a group of new pirates if any other crew did show up, this island was tiny and out of the way for anyone looking to go towards the grand line. He was expecting dumb fights between Cabaji and Mohji, Richie shedding everywhere and curling up in front of the kitchen so there would be yet another fight over food. Maybe he was expecting to have some of the ache sanded away by his crew, and a place to call Shanks (and Benn, who was almost as annoyed by Mihawks’ refusal to fight Shanks as Buggy was, unknown to Shanks - Buggy and Ben had started a plot to force Mihawk to spar against Shanks, and, more importantly, to fill the swordsman’s life with tiny little annoyances; not enough to make him hunt down whatever he thinks might be causing that, Buggy was far too aware that anyone who was friends with Shanks would be dumb enough to fight a non existent being, [somewhere in a forest on a tiny island called Dawn a fourteen year old boy thought about fighting god. Of course, this thought was forgotten in a second to deal with more pressing matters of singing songs about meat] but the thought was there and Buggy shivered. So slowly, steadily until Mihawk would just consider the minor annoyances something he just lived with and then-).

What Buggy was not expecting was the crew of the Spades to  _ suddenly  _ be on the island, and now he was grateful for his crew being on the other side of the island. Cabaji and Mohji would know what he would have wanted to happen as would Richie but the new guys on the crew... well it was always best to talk tactics before testing, either his newbies or the other pirate newbies. And since Richie was fighting a giant cat this meant they would be following Cabaji’s and Mohji’s lead, which was not the best idea since they took it as a challenge to get pirate crews to quit and since the new guys are new they don’t know how much to hold back- it still surprises him how often people  _ don’t _ know how easy it can be to kill someone to a blow to the head- excepting D’s, they just don’t work like normal people- or how quick and easy a blade to the hip can cause cause someone to bleed out. New guys are supposed to watch and learn, not attempt to show off, which is why Richie had a reputation in failed East Blue crews as a violent vicious monster who eats people, when in fact Richie was the second most liked person on their ship, the fact that it was a poll about people didn’t matter apparently. 

One of the many good things in East Blue, Buggy thought to himself, was the fact that most people had no idea that devil fruits were real, and even fewer of them had even dreamt of haki so he curled his body somewhere nearby to get a better understanding of the Spades and sent one of his fingers and his other eye back to his own crew. Cabaji and Mohji had spent days working on a set of codes that they could read from that one finger alone, but since he wanted to have a better idea of the crew, he moved them out of sight, and with (most) of his body curled up warm - sure there was a spider staring at him but since it was respecting the let’s not touch each other and it’ll all be fine rule, he was content to let it be, so he let his focus go to his left eye and the party that the Spades decided to throw.

His eye looked towards the blue haired man first, Deuce if he remembered correctly, who looked liked he was ignoring everything that was going on around him (a decent attempt but he had a long way to go to get a more casual look) before writing in that book of his and Buggy guessed that this guy was the one who remembered all the little things from other crews most people forgot. How exactly alike marine bases were and the system they changed their passwords on, for a new pirate he was doing an excellent job- and that’s not just because most pirate crews are just making it up as they go along and have no idea about tactics.

And that certainly seemed to be the case with the new(?) crew member he could see jumping around the fire and just sticking sparklers into the fire, and Buggy wished he had someone to pray to because this crew seemed to be a fire hazard- how had their ship not burnt down yet? Buggy didn’t recognise the person from any of the Spades’ wanted posters but that didn’t mean he was new maybe someone on this ship knew subtlety and he knew he was a hypocrite, but if he survived those hell years in the grand line by himself being  _ actively  _ hunted, he could be as flashy as he wanted to be. And that was another person joining the new guy by the fire- Assara his gold hair was almost as distinctive as the amount of weapons he was carrying. They appeared to be checking an angle of some sort, though why they were using a sextant on a fire Buggy had to admit that he had no clue. He watched as the two of them scrambled up a tree and watched as Assara pulled two bows out of nowhere and two things of leather and gave one of each to the newbie (he didn’t have a name and there were already two fire guys.) Newbie was copying him putting the leather on his fingers before they both placed an arrow- Buggy wasn’t sure arrows were meant to have a bag tied to them- and shot them into the fire. Only to have the fire turn green then blue, and then purple, sparks leaping high from the flames in bright oranges and shimmery pinks.

The sparks seemed to be a signal, as after the first spark went up music started to fill the air. King had pulled out a guitar from somewhere and started to play a quick rhythm which was soon matched by Queen playing along with them on the keys, and even when they weren’t talking to each other they were flirting with the music, keeping up with each other changing who leads and sending each other soft looks in between looking at everyone else, never losing the smile they shared. And that was one of the voices he remembered hearing on the radio, as Joker started to sing a song Buggy had never heard before, but he brought his ears closer (he kept one ear with his body and one nearby, not close enough to listen to any conversations that might be going on, but close enough he wouldn’t miss anything if he needed to overhear and when he saw instruments being pulled out, well, it was a chance for him to find out just who the singers of the group were) so he could submerge himself in Joker’s rich and regal voice, it was deep and soothing and just beautiful to listen to, the words didn’t matter, they could be talking about anything but as long as they sang it he would listen and be thankful.

As one song drew to a close two other members stood up, one with bright orange hair- Jack- and extended his hand to the person beside him, pulling him up then kissing his hand and then his lips quickly, the two of them sharing smiles before Quinque pulled him into a dance, and how fast could they go and still be in sync, their legs were moving quickly, flicking to the side then in between each others legs, and then they were off, bouncing and leaping and spinning grins on their faces as they got faster and faster. Taking turns to spin each other before racing off to do something else, Buggy felt out of breath just watching them. Once the music stopped, so did they, giggling and hugging as they collapsed back onto the floor. 

A cheer went up from the group of girls, the loudest being Saith who had her hands full trying to fix her leg so she couldn’t clap like the others, and ouch, Buggy reflexively suppressed a flinch. They hadn’t known what his devil fruit could do until one fight before the war before he learnt how to  _ hide _ as well as he should have and had been caught by some bastard of a pirate who didn’t care about cutting into a kid. It hadn’thurt physically  _ thank fuck for weird devil fruit nonsense _ but he had seen the blade coming, cutting him in two. And he’d gotten all sorts of cuts from training and being a brat with Shanks running all over the ship and he had  _ expected  _ the pain. It wasn’t until Roger  ~~ his father ~~ was holding him together, the blood of that man splattered all over him, the tears running down Roger’s face washing away the blood, that he realised he couldn’t feel any pain. It took until Shanks appeared for Roger to let go of him, and even then it was only to  _ slaughter  _ the other crew personally- it took less than a minute before he was back. And now was not the time to be getting lost in thought. Buggy slapped himself gently to bring himself back to the present, not seeing but feeling the judgemental look from the spider in front of him. 

Shanks later told him of the pain of losing his arm, though losing Mihawk as a fighting partner seemed to hurt Shanks more, but Buggy was pathetically grateful that he would never actually have to feel his limbs being cut apart, and here was a pirate who lost two of them. Saith, who was carefully twisting a small piece of metal into place, and that leg looked like it would break any second, it was beautiful, a true work of art with all the engraving and the details put on, but it looked far too fragile to  _ walk  _ on, turning a painful loss into something gorgeous. 

The music paused for a moment before starting back up again- slower this time but still as beautiful. One of the girls from the corner stood up. Tatala, the only one he knew of the crew who wore a hijab, who decided to follow their crew members by dancing, but of course just when he was getting used to the quick flicks and the speed of the other dance, she decided to dance in a completely different style with another girl with purple in her hair- Ennea, but honestly Buggy was more concerned with the  _ fire  _ that appeared to be coming from their feet, but what did he know, maybe it was a new thing the kids were up to these days, no one else seemed to be worried about them- but then again they weren’t concerned with the guy making the fire explode either. The couple seemed to be dancing beautifully as far as he could tell, soft and continuous with long arms moving their chests still moving in time with each other, quickly then slowing down in tandem to exaggerate their lines. Tatala was spinning Ennea quickly around only to lean her backwards, showing off her flexibility, one of her legs having just the top of her toes on the floor the other reaching up to point at the sky trusting her partner to hold her- and the lack of a lamp made it easy to forget that she was one of the ‘scary fire team’ as one not very descriptive marine called them, though that did explain the fire at their feet. Looking closely, their feet were coated in black and  _ fuck, _ how they hell do they know how to do that, if they can use armament haki then he was glad he decided to scatter his haki anyway, no matter how paranoid it made him feel.

Buggy felt out with his haki subtly. If this crew had armament already well they could have observation as well, not that they would find him, he had practised for weeks, months even to perfect hiding his presence but there was no need to get cocky. It didn’t appear that any of the Spades had spotted him at all, so he took a breath and focused on the one person in the group who he hadn’t been able to focus on. Part of it was the terror that his instincts were insisting existed in this boy he’s never met, part of it was seeing what the crew was like, how they acted, said a lot about what kind of a person the captain was and from what their haki was telling him everyone was happy and relaxed.Part of Buggy wondered where Ocht was and if it was her his instincts were terrified of. That would make some sense seeing as it didn’t matter whichever group of marines or pirates met her, they would all refuse to speak of it and would just scream when pressed (what was more impressive was the fact that the marines had actually had to shell out to get a therapist because one of the traumatised marines was a rich daddies boy and the therapist refused to work with them anymore and joined in on screaming at remembering so if it was her his instincts were terrified of Buggy could understand). But no. 

It was the captain- Ace- with an achingly familiar face and so Buggy focused on the boy’s haki. It was odd that in all the books he had read about haki- and there were frightfully few- and all the people he talked to, no one mentioned that haki seemed to be passed on by your parents. Not that you would get a copy of your parent’s haki, but it was like how the body was a mix of your parents genes, your haki was a mix of your parents haki. And Buggy froze, his eye and finger pulling back towards his body as he forced himself to be sneaky and quiet (though his mind was screaming and he had to force himself to breathe regularly, just because it was only a  _ spider _ that was watching him doesn’t mean that he could allow his focus to slip) as he brought his body to him. That couldn’t be, he wanted his body to be whole for this, he was just making a mistake, there was no way that Ace could be the son of his captain.  ~~ That would mean his father didn’t just abandon them he kept his child a secret he didn’t  _ trust _ them , so he needed to check,  ~~ _ he wanted Shanks  _ ~~_ he wanted his father. _ ~~ And that’s where he knew that face from, it was the colouring that threw him off, and wasn’t that even more confusing because  _ HOW  _ the hell did his moron of a captain convince the queen of spades to give him the time of day, last time he saw them Roger was trying (and failing) to get a smile from her- he did get pushed overboard though and they had to deal with him going on about how she touched him, and how much of a blessing it was. Honestly Buggy thought that he and Shanks had it best in the crew anytime Rouge came around, they were children they were allowed to be disgusted by anything to do with romance, the rest of the crew had to sit there and listen to Roger  _ pine _ without making faces. Without thinking Buggy stretched his observation haki to its limits, it wasn’t enough to reach Shanks, who was residing in the grand line but the revelation was throwing Buggy into a panic and he without thinking automatically reached out for the one person who meant safety. Buggy  _ couldn’t _ feel Shanks but he was no longer paying attention to where his feet were taking him.

And he _really_ wasn’t paying attention to the spider that during his distraction had moved towards him, climbing up his leg, and was now standing motionless on his coat, and he walked them both towards the Spades camp. He didn’t notice when the spider jumped off his coat and scurried towards the fire pit. He didn’t notice when the spider started to shift into a human. He didn’t notice when the projectiles stopped being shot into the fire and two crew members scurried down the trees. He didn’t notice when the rest of the camp listened to what the spider lady said. He didn’t hear what she said. He didn’t see the crew moving towards him. He didn’t see the newbie’s hands being lit up by some strange blue light in response to someone only the newbie could see. What Buggy did notice was someone new appearing to his haki senses, his eyes he couldn’t trust, he couldn’t trust anything but his haki, the one thing that always kept him safe- kept Shanks safe, but it _wasn’t possible,_ that haki was dead. He _saw_ his captain die, saw his head being cut off whilst demanding that no one even _try_ to save him. But he trusted his haki and so he trusted that _was_ his captain’s haki, which meant he was here, and he _left them._ He couldn’t see anything but red, ~~couldn’t see anything through his tears~~ but he sent his hand out anyway, he could hear his _captain’s ~~his~~_ ~~ _father’s_~~ voice and he wasn’t thinking of the pain of the hurt of the betrayal of the fear he had been feeling ever since the crew abandoned two kids, ~~since his father never let him say goodbye.~~

He didn’t think, he just let his fist fly, punching his captain in the face, Buggy didn’t hear the shocked silence of the Spades crew before helpless giggles were pouring out of Ace’s mouth. All Buggy was thinking was that this was his captain and he left them alone to be hunted without a goodbye. Honestly, a large part of Buggy was sure he had finally lost whatever sanity he had managed to dig his claws into, but this was the closest he had ever been to hallucinating his captain’s presence and he panicked, his foot separating from his body the way his hand did and, without consulting his panicking brain, ran (hopped) forward and kicked the crying hallucination, going for the second most painful place on his captain’s body- his feet couldn’t fly so he couldn’t kick him in the moustache- he couldn’t jump that high. So a foot straight into his crotch would have to do. And it was real he could  _ feel  _ his captain his father and Buggy couldn’t help it, he clutched on his father sobbing, the anger could come later, he was here.

“My son” And Buggy couldn’t be hearing his captain right could he? All he could feel was love from Roger, no anger from his punches, though Roger was always more impressed than anything else when someone did land a hit on him, and then warm arms around him and safety, the first time he’s felt safe when away from Shanks since the execution stand. And the world stopped.

* * *

“Okay so are we going to talk about you new brother Ace?” Deuce asked whilst attempting to mimic Otch, who was hanging from a tree branch by her legs. Deuce was not having much luck, he was scrambling to try and reach a hand hold to pull himself up.

“What, that he’s here in East Blue or that he had the best reaction to our father?” Ace couldn’t help but smile, sure he was starting to get used to the fact that Roger was his father and that he wasn’t the source of all evil Gramps made him out to be. But he still remembered being told that they were so glad he didn’t exist and if he did exist that he should do the world a favour and drown. That didn’t just go away, though none of his crew members had said anything after the ghost appeared and he had heard something about them hunting down some people in a bar. 

“I was gonna ask about the father issue, it might just be that I'm from a completely different world but I just don’t get it.” Klaus chimed in, seeing that Deuce was a little distracted managing to get two feet off the ground. Klaus could see that Ace was worried about everyone’s reaction to his dad. And they seemed shocked, but Klaus remembered the way Ace held himself, it was so similar to the way he held himself, bracing himself when Luther was going to say something to destroy whatever self esteem he had built up. 

“Can I ask about the captain thing” Buggy had woken up - not that he fell asleep just whited out - he was just a little (lot) distracted. His captain was still here hovering over his shoulder, his father (and he said it, it wasn’t just a vague feeling) had stayed in contact with him proving that he was real. 

“What, that he’s here?” Ace asked and it was weird to have an older brother, according to his mum anyway, his father was just hugging the other blue haired man and Ace was very glad: this meant hopefully that someone else would get the strange nicknames- he had heard that the children in the village would get nicknames, he had never had one, they just looked at him with pity when he first wandered down when he was six and the names Dadan gave him were more accurate anyway  ~~ demon child devil child monster . ~~

“Yeah, I mean I did see them cut his head off” And how Buggy managed to say that so calmly he had no idea, it should have been a constant panic since Shanks wasn’t here and they never talked about that day, the only time one of Shanks’ crew brought it up the two of them had frozen years old panic freezing their minds. It was safe enough for Shanks to say who his captain was, he was a yonko and bounty hunters didn’t stand a chance against him, whereas Buggy was well aware that his own skills were lacking, he didn’t need the voices of his own- his  _ old _ crew reminding him.

“That would be me. Hello welcome to the ghost crew.” Klaus piped up waving his hello hand and smiling. It had been over a month since he had landed here and he wasn’t sure he had ever felt better, sure there were no drugs here and he  _ missed  _ them violently sometimes, and he would start collecting things to sell only to be reminded that a, there were no drugs here and then b, there was a room filled with treasure which he could go in and take as much as he wanted as long as he left a note saying what he took. And every day he was here he was reminded that his home life was not the greatest, he remembered going to Pogo once before he had to resort to the  _ oldest profession  _ as one of his friends called it and the chimp just shut the door on him. 

He didn’t  _ mind  _ it, he told himself, and most of the time it was just some man who wanted a thrill of not his wife. Then there were the ones with ghosts hanging around, and most of the time he could stop one of the girls going off with them, after the first time where Ruby went off with someone and never came back, the girls would always check with him. It didn’t always work sometimes he was too high to tell but they still took him on as their lucky mascot. But sometimes the dudes would just stay there watching and Klaus would just take whatever he had and go off with him, he didn’t know why he was left alive (Ben never told him he didn’t survive, that he had to sit their praying that Klaus would wake up again.) 

But this crew, they wouldn’t let him wallow, they stayed with him through the withdrawals, listened to him when he talked, and even that one part of him that always felt numb, felt  _ chemical _ for lack of a better term, the part that pushed on his cravings to feel that pure chemical numbness, felt alive again. Sure, he missed his siblings, but Ben was here and he was unlikely to have met any of them (well he might have seen Diego and used him to kill the creepy ghost filled john’s- Diego was always down to commit violence) and Vanya was there to play her music to drown out the screams sometimes.

“We’re not all dead” Tatala piped in. She was mostly watching Deuce flail about trying to get up the tree, he was determined that he could because Ocht could, he didn’t really think that the reason she could climb a tree with no branches near the ground was because she was using her devil fruit powers and she wasn’t about to remind him of that, it was amusing to watch him try and grip the tree only to slip back down- “in fact most of us aren’t dead.” 

“Not yet” Ocht called down, even being so far up the tree her small smirk was visible as she watched Deuce slip. 

“You have a very pessimistic view” Saith teased up, as the most pessimistic members of the crew they tried to hit each other with those kind of lines before the others could get them out and with the soft pouts on some of the crews lips, it was still working to annoy them. Originally several people had tried to tease them about it, but when the same argument gets derailed by nonsense lines, even a crew as eccentric as the Spades leave it alone most of the time. 

“I would like to think of myself as practical since most people die. And even then they don’t tend to come back” Ocht teased back, no one had asked what life was like after death, the ghost seemed content and Klaus had said there was a sort of after life that people could move on to, which was comforting to know.

“Most people don’t dimensional travel, I don’t want to rule anything out” Quinque interrupted and sure there were ghosts and not just from another dimension and he was so very curious about how that worked, but that didn’t mean that they would come back as ghosts, even if ghosts of people in this dimension existed here as one very overprotective father often proved. 

“Buggy you’re awake now!” Roger curled around his son, hugging him the way he wished he could for so many years- yes he had been hugging his son since he blanked out for a while, but his son was here with his other son, he just needed his third son to pop up and his family would be complete and together. Roger was an adult who sailed up and down the grand line for fun and profit and he knew how to hold his feelings back so Buggy couldn’t pick them up through his haki, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel them still, and he had a lot of rage to hold back whenever he thought of his son’s past. But he was the pirate king- though he wouldn’t mention his title out loud again- he had waited, not waited, waited had the implication that what he wanted could happen given enough time, he never really dreamt that he could hold his children (again in most cases,) he watched helplessly and he had learnt patience during the last twenty years, so he would wait until he could repay with interest to a lot of people just how much his children had suffered. 

“Why do you get your name and not some” Ace had to ask, he needed to know if there was anything he could do to stop the names his… father called him and since they were only used on him, maybe there was something he could do. But of course, before the thought could finish forming in his head, his… father had started up again 

“My darling baby boy, my scrumptchy wunchy cutie patooty, my huggy-bunny, my precious firebug” Roger who was still hugging Buggy managed to grab Ace’s arm and dragged him into the hug as well. Ignoring how Buggy and Ace were bonding over the desire to be free from the hug that had lasted way too long.

“...That” Ace couldn’t bring himself to repeat any of his… father’s words they were humiliating and embarrassing and why the hell was his father acting like this. He let his face so all the pleading he was feeling towards Buggy begging him without words 

“My tiny precious baby dumpling” and Roger’s voice was sad and pleading, but there was no way he was going to stop calling his darling baby by these adorable pet names. And yes he was being mean to his other sons by not calling them adorable names all the time either, but he didn’t get to see his eldest two as babies, they came to him as children as nine year olds who attempted to steal from him and his crew. They still got pet names when they were adorable and they quickly tried not to show any form of adorableness ‘weakness’ to the crew, but with Ace it was different he saw how adorable he was, how  _ small  _ he was as a baby. Rouge had somehow, for lack of a better understanding, paused her pregnancy. So Ace hadn’t grown the way you would expect during Rouge’s extended pregnancy, her body had taken the strain of being pregnant which, along with no doctors on the island, had led to her death, but Ace, when he was born, had been on the small side of a normal nine month pregnancy baby. Whenever Roger looked at his youngest, all he could see was how small Ace had been, how lucky he was that Ace managed to live. 

“Can you stop please” Ace begged, the face did nothing to Buggy, not true, Buggy was torn and wanted to help this strange brother of his, but also their father didn’t call him nonsense names all the time, only when he was being cute and Buggy had tried his hardest to never be seen as cute, he got enough names from his nose, he didn’t need people teasing him with Roger’s nicknames as well.

“I don’t know captain, they are cute names and you do suit them” Deuce, who had (currently) given up trying to climb the tree Ocht was sitting on, though he did give it and Ocht an angry glare before returning his attention to Ace and the other members of the crew, said. 

“Deuce I love you but I will kill you” Ace growled out. Yes, manners were important and Ace wanted everything to be perfect when he finally met the Shanks person Luffy talked about all the time, so he practised and practised until it became second nature to him to be as polite as possible and how Makino learnt all the rules and managed to teach them to him, a highly energetic feral child Ace would never know. But Ace would do anything for Luffy- once the boy had gotten into his heart, he loves his little brother and missed him the second he had to leave the island but he had to leave had to be free, and had to thank the man who saved his brother’s life. But sometimes the manners would be forgotten or purposely pushed aside in order for that feral jungle child to strike fear into people with just his voice. Unfortunately that voice, which had more than a few bandits and criminals on Dawn running for the hills, had no effect on his crew. 

“The great Ennea agrees with Ace, you should be calling him your little prince, angel face, ohhh I know Grumpapotamus when he’s making that adorable grumpy face.” Ennea grinned and the crew all paled a bit that grin meant nothing good, and in this case Ace felt a shiver run through him as he watched Ennea cheering, her grin blinding and he knew there was no saving him anymore.

“Why?” Ace managed to get out, his face pouting with despair. He felt one of Buggy’s hands awkwardly patting him on the shoulder.

“Because you are so cute” Ennea sang out before giggling so hard she fell on the floor. 

“I hate all of you.” Ace gritted out, unfortunately aware that this was to be his new fate.

“No you don’t” the unanimous voice of all his crew called back. 

“Buggy you’re my new favourite.” Ace snapped out, Roger half loving that his son’s were getting along and half in excruciating pain that he was not his little firebug prince’s favourite, ended up releasing both of his sons, watching for a moment before grabbing Ace in his arms as if that would force him to name Roger as his favourite .

“You don’t know me?” And yes from what Buggy had seen of this strange crew it wouldn’t matter how long Ace had known him, just by the fact he wasn’t babying the captain of a crew who all had a minimum of 100,000,000 beli bounties, their captain having at least triple that, he was including the newbie in this and why has no one done introductions yet was a question that he really wanted to know the answer to, but anyway, anyone who can summon the ghost of the pirate king was definitely going to have a high bounty at some point sooner rather than later. 

“Are you going to join in?” Ace asked, wanting to know if the only sane person on this island would abandon him as well.

“Probably not.” Buggy admitted, he just couldn’t look at  his brother Ace and tease him seeing the sad face he pulled, but also because he could take care of himself and didn’t need or want to be babied.

“Favourite” Ace stated to the horror of his crew.

“That’s not fair captain, you can’t claim him as your favourite” Quinque rushed out his words to make sure they were the first to be heard, because that was not how this worked Ace, his favourite was supposed to be a Spade pirate, not some random strange brother who didn’t see how adorable their captain was.

“Yeah he needs to teach me how to sense the hidy people” Assara had been waiting for the usual antics and drama to die down, though the whole we’re related thing was new, to claim Buggy(?) as his teacher. He needed to know how he managed to hide his presence, Ocht had said that he was nearby spying on them and he didn’t manage to set off his mystery sensing thing. Assara was ready, he was going to learn and he wasn’t going to let anyone sneak up on his crew, though he couldn’t do that if Ace was stealing his future mentor. 

“The hidy people?” Buggy had to ask, because if he was asking how to sense ghosts he had no idea (and honestly he was more than ready to have another breakdown- his captain was here and it was just the absurdity of the situation that was allowing him to act as if there was  _ something, _ he really didn’t have the words and he was wishing for his denden because he needed Shanks but he couldn’t- wouldn’t look away) if their haki was different, it felt the same, yes, but Buggy couldn’t sense his captain until he had become solid and right in front of him, so he wasn’t any help there.

“Yeah, like that marine lady who snuck up on us that one time” Assara had no words to explain how he knew people were there apart from Buggy and the marine lady and it was quite annoying that one of the people whom he was talking about didn’t understand what he was saying.

“You are very bad at the whole, you know, convincing people to help.” Buggy had to point out, and god wasn’t it enough that he had his own crew of misfits to deal with, did he really have to deal with another. Though Cabaji would have fun grabbing the fire brats into the circus act and that was a BAD idea, Cabaji did not need to find a love of fire, he was bad enough with knives. 

“How would you do it?” Deuce asked sidling closer to Buggy after shooting one last disdainful look at the tree. His little black book appearing in his hands.

“Well in your position I would use the fact that I want to know about the ghost over there, the one trying to smother your captain.” Roger continued to smother Ace but looked up to send a fond look and a wave at Buggy. “And hold that knowledge until you got what you wanted.”

Deuce turned to look at Assara, who was purposefully not crowding Buggy and sending Deuce warning glares “Assara I’m stealing him first.” 

“What?” Assara gave up any attempt to be cool and was now glaring at Deuce, he could improve his blackmail skills with anyone who feels shame, this guy was the first person who wasn’t an enemy who could hide and he wanted to know how to find them. 

“I need him to help with the blackmail.” Sure being able to sense when people were coming was great and everything, but that didn’t mean anything if you couldn’t manipulate them into doing your bidding and Deuce had seen the hesitation Buggy had before answering, this was someone who Deuce needed to learn from.

“Since when am I helping?” Buggy had to ask, he was here to find out about his  ~~ father ~~ captain and the ghosts since when was he going to teach?

“Well since if you want to know about the NOT king you gonna have to stay” Deuce interjected 

“Not king?” Buggy asked and were they really talking about-

“You are not the first person to fight the crying man.” pointing at the ghost who had finally been kicked off Ace, who was now hiding behind miss Rouge, because why not, sure, lets just have everyone show up again.

“How did that happen-? Nevermind how well did that go?” Buggy had to ask and did this purple child really beat Roger for the title of king? 

“Well since King is determined that there is only one King in this crew and since the useless man over there was too busy crying over his precious darling dumpling of an angel face little prince of a boy-” Deuce started

“Deuce I swear I’m gonna-” Ace peered around Rouge and Buggy was still wondering how he looked so much like Rouge, honestly if it wasn’t for his colouring there would be nothing of Roger in him, which was a good thing for  _ more  _ than one reason.

“King pushed him overboard so they would be the only one. Since they  _ did  _ win they are the only king on the crew and since he doesn’t seem to be leaving us very often, he mostly gets called crying man.” Deuce continued talking over Ace. 

Buggy was trying so hard not to laugh at the image of the pirate king being pushed overboard by an irate purple child. 

“Darling I think maybe you should leave Ace alone and actually  _ talk  _ with your other child here. And by talk I do actually mean using your mouth and not just projecting with your haki.” Rouge finally decided to talk, seeing that her husband was just trying to send his feelings through his haki and not using his mouth to speak.

“Miss Rouge.” Buggy spoke deciding to talk to her rather then try and understand what she was saying.

“Hello Buggy do you want us to stay here or should we give you two privacy?”

“Will you tell me how the HELL he managed to convince you to look at him?” That was the question he was dying to know and they were here he could ask.

“Not particularly.” And neither her face, nor her voice was sheepish but there was something about her that gave that impression for once.

“It’s embarrassing, isn't it?” This time it wasn’t just Buggy, but the entirety of the Spades crew as well

“Look at her, look at him of course it’s embarrassing” Queen pointed out to a series of nods.

“Hey I’m a charming man.” Roger tried to defend himself.

“...” the crew was silent, just looking at each other, wondering who was going to be the first to break.

“I’m going to find out, you know.” Buggy decided he was going to ignore Roger and ask miss Rouge, he couldn’t look at Roger ~~his _captain_ his _father_~~ without breaking down, he had held it back through sheer bewilderment but even that wasn’t strong enough to last forever. 

“Will you now?” Rouge’s smirk was cocky, she was filled with the knowledge that only her and Roger knew what happened and they had already taken it to their grave once. 

“Maybe not.” Buggy knew that smirk, that was the smirk miss Rouge had seeing her enemies underestimate her, seeing her as a beautiful  _ weak  _ woman before the Queen of Spades came to wreck them. 

“You were always the smartest of my husband’s children.” Rouge said with a small smile.

“That’s not exactly hard” It was habit by now to insult Shanks, half the time he did deserve the insults but also there was habit built when it was the two of them against the world and anything they could do to make the enemies coming for them underestimate them they did.

“The longer you put this off the worst it’s going to be, and Roger, he deserves to know.” Rouge wasn’t going to let either of them put it off any longer, they were going to actually  _ talk  _ for once. 

“Why?” His voice was cracking and hoarse, and Buggy wanted to ask when they were alone, didn’t want his breakdown to be in view of a crew, he doesn’t  _ know  _ doesn’t trust, but the words slipped out of his mouth without thinking. It had been over eighteen years, eighteen years of wondering why he wasn’t good enough to say goodbye to, and however long it had been wondering why his  _ father  _ never told him about his younger brother.

“...” his father just looked at him one hand raising up slightly, he had never seen the look on his face and this was the man who didn’t hesitate to fight to go to war over a misunderstanding or a minor insult, who threatened to go to war with the world itself, why would he hesitate now.

“Why didn’t you let us try to save you? Why didn’t you let us say goodbye?” And his eyes were filled with tears again and Buggy focused his haki on his father, trusting that the Queen of Spades (at least Ace had known one parent, he thought, even if the blue glow suggested that she was also a ghost, to name his crew after her) would be able to sense anyone thinking of attacking them. 

Roger still didn’t speak but he didn’t let his hesitations stop him this time, he reached out, sweeping his son in his arms, relieved beyond measure when he felt Buggy’s arms reaching around him, fists pressed into his back. 

“You weren’t meant to be there. It was selfish of me” (Rouge had hammered that into his head when she found him watching as his sons suffered being hunted for who they were to him) “I wanted to stay in your mind as the captain I had built myself up to be, I didn’t want you to see me as I was dying, you had already  _ felt _ the illness. And I didn’t want to waste away anymore than I already was.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been a while sorry about that this chapter did not want to cooperate at all but we have family interactions and we still haven't left East Blue yet so who knows what is going to happen. Any thoughts ideas comments at all please let me know and i hope you like it.


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